In 2007, I planted two kinds of Lamium maculatum in the same bed: "Aureum" and "Pink Pewter." Both are deliriously happy.
In mid-summer of this year, I discovered that around the edges of one of my Aureum specimens, the plain old species was growing, as shown in the photo.
Is the Aureum reverting to species? If so, what's the mechanism for this phenomenon? These guys don't reseed, do they?
(The Pink Pewter don't seem affected.)
A couple things could be going on--they could be reseeding and since it's a cultivar it won't come true from seed so you could get plants that would look more like the straight species. Or sometimes cultivars with different color leaves can revert--I've never seen this with Lamium, but it can happen to other plants, usually variegated cultivars. You can check by looking to see if the different looking parts are separate plants or if you've got both color leaves on the same plant. Your growth is fairly dense so it may be a little tricky to sort out what's attached to what though.
I finally found time to take a closer look at the plants, and indeed, the species is a separate plant: it just wormed its way among the species leaves.
I didn't know that Lamiums formed seeds: they're so good at self-cleaning that I never observed seed pods.
Thanks!
