Alternative name: elder grass, candle cuttings, rosette summer grass, Buddha's seat grass

Latin name: Lamium amplexicaule L

Family: Labiatae wild sesame

Origin and distribution: all over the country

Baogai grass annual or biennial herbs, 10-50cm tall. Stems cespitose, base slightly oblique ascending, weak, 4-angled, often purplish, covered with obtuse sparse hairs. Leaves opposite; shortly petiolate, gradually sessile upward, clasping; leaf blade reniform or suborbicular, apex rounded, base cordate or rounded, margin crenate or lobed, both surfaces finely hairy. Verticillasters 6-10-flowered, often with closed-fertilized flowers; flowers in axils of all but basal pair of leaves, externally hirsute; calyx tubular, cleft teeth 5, long and conical; corolla purplish-red or pink, tube slender, suberect, without hairy ring, upper lip also suberect, oblong, slightly helmeted, lower lip spreading, with 3 lobes, middle lobe obcordate, with a sinus at the apex; stamens 4, subequal to style Stamens 4, nearly as long as style, all included, anthers flat-forked, hairy. Nutlets oblong, 3-angled, brownish black, with white scale-like projections. Flowering March-May, fruiting July-August.