Even after days and days of rain, pavement plants are properly getting going in SE London. Here’s Henbit Deadnettle, doing its thing on a road verge. It’s in the Deadnettle family – Lamiaceae – and is superficially similar to its more common relative Red Deadnettle but the overall impression is that it has more defined toothier leaves and smaller flowers. It can self-fertilise so the tiny pink flowers don’t always open properly which is called “cleistogamy”. It appears in my book Wild Pavements – Exploring Britain’s Cities with an Urban Naturalist which is published 5 Mar 2026