Stinging Nettle

Stinging Nettle

Urtica dioica

Every kid who has ever walked through a woods or field with shorts on knows how to identify Stinging Nettle.  It can practically bring you to your knees!  I don't have any personal experience, but it has been said that if you rub Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) on it, the stinging will stop immediately.  If not, just wait about five minutes and the pain will go away.

On the other hand, young nettle shoots are edible.  One time I took my young nephew camping and he had the grand experience of walking through a nettle patch, at which point he hated nettles.  After that, I collected some shoots and we had them during dinner, whereupon he decided that nettles were good and bad.  I guess that's true for a lot of things.

Another thing that it's good for is as a host plant for a number of butterfly caterpillars.  The Red Admiral owes its livelihood to Stinging Nettle, as do Commas, Question Marks, and all sorts of moths and other insects.

Stinging Nettle is one of those plants that the taxonomists got a hold of and now it's practically impossible to know which species you have.  I just call them all nettle and let it go at that.



Stinging nettle has tiny little flowers that hand down in bunches underneath the leaves

Serrated leaves