Henbit deadnettle (Lamium amplexicaule)

To keep ourselves from going completely stir-crazy during quarantine, my mom and I like to go on a lot of walks. We usually end up at the wooded park near my house to enjoy all of the beautiful first signs of spring. As the weeks have progressed, we’ve witnessed the first buds blossom on cherry trees, new growth push out from young saplings, and small yellow dandelions begin to cover the ground. On today’s walk we stopped to sit in the sun on a hill before going home. Out of habit I started picking at the grass and weeds because I always need to be doing something with my hands. After a minute I started to smell corn on the cob, which was strange considering I was nowhere near houses or corn. I looked down at my hands and realized the small purple flowers I was holding were very familiar. In fact, we were sitting on the same hill next to the soccer field that I always met my friends before practice for 10 years. We would always pick these flowers off the ground, put them in our hair, and crush them up, because for some reason they smell like corn.

After five or ten minutes of googling, I found out that the flowering weed is called Henbit deadnetttle, which can grow like fields over top of grass. I picked a few more to bring home, and as we walked back, my mom and I laughed about all of the fun memories I made playing soccer growing up. When I arrived back home, I texted a few of my old teammates who I lost touch with since going to college. We all talked for hours and joked around just like we used to. Spending time in nature can bring happiness in unexpected ways and rekindle old friendships in a time when we all could use some more human connection.

Caldonia Carmello