Ground Ivy

Lamiaceae

LIFE FORM: Perennial

NATIVITY: Europe

VEGETATIVE CHARACTERISTICS:

This is a ground-cover plant with square stems that root at the nodes; small, kidney-shaped leaves are about an inch across.

FLOWERS:

Small, tubular flowers are purple-blue, produced in spring on short, upright stems.

FRUIT/DISPERSAL AGENTS:

Self-sows from seed, and spreads by creeping stems.

ECOLOGICAL PREFERENCE:

Grows best in shady, mosit soil, but also in full sun. Prefers trampled lawns in public parks; neglected residential and commercial landscapes; minimally maintained public parks and open space; freshwater wetlands, ponds and streams.

ENVIRONMENTAL FUNCTION:

Disturbance-adapted colonizer.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:

This plant has a multiplicity of medicinal uses in Europe. Included by Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in his five volume herbal, De Materia Medica, which was written in the first century AD and remained in active use into the 1600s.