Nature on our doorsteps: Hedge Woundwort

Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into nature on our doorsteps and the beautiful biodiversity of its plants and wildlife. 

An often overlooked plant along roadside ditches and hedgerows is the Hedge Woundwort.

While its green leaves and spikes of small flowers help this plant blend into the background, it is worth a much closer look.

The whole plant is very softly hairy, and unfortunately it releases quite a strong pungent smell when bruised.

Its heart-shaped leaves were once used in folk medicine as dressings for wounds. This gave rise to the plant’s name, Woundwort, where wort is the old English word for ‘plant’.

The plant was also used to produce a yellow dye.

Hedge Woundwort’s flowers grow in whorled steps up the 4-sided stem. The flowers are small and beetroot-red in colour.

Each flower has delicate white guide lines that are traced onto the lower petal to help guide bees to its rich store of nectar.

Tiny stiff hairs around the mouth of the flower help the insects hang on as they feed and become dusted with pollen.

The Woundwort Shield Bug is particularly associated with Hedge Woundwort

The ginger backed Common Carder Bee is a regular visitor to Woundwort, making this bumblebee an important pollinator for this plant.

Despite the plant’s pungent aroma, this does not prevent insects from eating Hedge Woundwort.

Its flowers are eaten by caterpillars of moths like the Small Rivulet and the Garden Tiger, while its leaves are eaten by the beautiful, shiny, gold-green Leaf Beetle.

There is also one shield bug, the Woundwort Shield Bug, that is almost completely associated with this plant.

Woundwort’s Latin name is Stachys sylvatica.

Gardeners will be familiar with a wide range of cultivated Stachys varieties that are great to grow in the garden, not least because they are highly attractive to bees and butterflies.

This makes Woundwort a nice wildflower addition to the garden, particularly in a damp shady location where other cultivated flowers may not do so well.

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