Nettles For Food and Medicine :: Botany

call on the carpets For regimen and MedicineDespite its nondescript appearance, the stinging nettle (genus Urtica dioica) has a facility for grabbing the attention of anyone passing by. Unfortunately, most people never notice nettles until they argon viciously attacked with sharp, hot, itching stings. Consequently, most people familiar with nettles regard them as pesky and undesir fitted weeds. Few people today realize that nettles may actually be counted among natures most useful plants. As is frequently the effect with common names, the term nettle is often used for plants that arent nettles at all. In the Midwest, the plant known as Red Dead-Nettle is actually a fragment of the Mint Family and the Horse Nettle (which is poisonous) is actually a Nightshade (Seymour, 1997). The true nettles die to the Urticaceae, also known as the Nettle Family. The Nettle Family is set planetary and consists of about 45 genera and 700-1000 species. Most of the species are tropical and herb aceous (Walters and Keil, 1996). Urtica dioica, the plant most often called by the name Stinging Nettle, is a dioecious perennial plant that stands about one meter tall. It has simple, opposite, toothy leaves (5-10cm long) with persistent stipules and, most importantly, stinging trichomes. The radially symmetrical flowers are arrange in axillary panicles, completely lack petals, and have 4 sepals and 4 stamens. The fruits are small, oval achenes (1-2mm long). In addition to growing from seed, the plants are able to spread rhizomatously (Radford, Ahles and Bell, 1968). The Stinging Nettle is actually not nearly as common in the U.S. as the closely related Wood Nettle (genus Laportea canadensis). The Wood Nettle is often mistaken for the Stinging Nettle by most people because the Wood Nettle also has stinging hairs. Laportea canadensis is not as tall as Urtica dioica, has larger leaves (up to 20cm) and time of day stipules. The staminate flowers have 5 sepals and 5 stamens and are found in axillary panicles. The pistillate flowers have only 4 sepals and are found in either terminal or axillary panicles. The achene is crescent-shaped (Radford, Ahles and Bell, 1968). The forest nettle grows well in rich forests and may be particularly abundant along hiking trails near streams. Hikers are frequently dismayed to view that when such trails arent carefully maintained, nettles quickly begin to arch dangerously oer the paths. There are several other species from the Nettle Family in the fall in States, but only 4 of the genera represented, Urtica, Hesperocnide, Laportea, and Urera, have the characteristic stinging trichomes.