Stinging nettle is a plant that too many of us only criticize. It stings! The tiny venom-filled hairs on the leaves are really painful to brush against. So suburbanites, farmers, hikers, hunters and many others, dislike it; it stings, it makes places that you go around rather than through, nasty plant.
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| stinging nettle, Urtica dioica |
Full of nutrition, stinging nettles have also been an important medicinal, especially as tonic or tea. Again, if you only bump into them, you wouldn't imagine they'd yield a very pleasant tea, but they do. Nettles were also brewed into popular local ales and beers.
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| stinging nettle, Urtica dioica |
Nettles are in the genus Urtica, and the stinging nettle is Urtica dioica, nettle family Urticaceae. Urtica is a genus of about 63 species found all over the world. North America has two native species, but stinging nettle is from Eurasia. It has naturalized all across North America. Stinging nettle is easy to identify: it stings. Plants with similar leaves that do not sting your hands are some other species. (And there are a number of plants, mostly not in the genus Urtica, that look a lot like nettles.) The test is easy, although somewhat painful.
The plants spread easily from rhizomes, forming big clones.
Urtica was the Roman word for the plant, based on the Latin word for burning. So well-known are these plants that urticate is a general verb in English, meaning stinging. Nettle is explained as a version of needle, again making the point that this plant hurts you. The species epithet dioica means dioecious, a term used for plants where each individual plant is either male (staminate) or female (pistilate) but not both. People who looked at stinging nettles, expecting dioecy, have often been puzzled, because many plants have flowers of both sexes. Apparently in Europe, part of their native range, stinging nettles are largely dioecious, but in North America many plants are monoecious (the flowers either one sex or the other but both produced by the same plant.) Probably monoecy evolved in North America where it facilitated stinging nettles being weedy and invasive since one monoecious plant is required to produce seeds while you need two dioecious ones, one male and one female.
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| a group of flowering nettle plants under a tree |
Stinging nettles are wind-pollinated so they have inconspicous whitish flowers (above). Likewise the seed heads are not dramatic, so after an encounter or two, you learn to recognize and avoid the leaves giving no thought to flower or fruit.
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| nettle with flowers (white, near top) and developing fruit (greenish farther down) |
In a lot of North America, stinging nettles grow in moister areas, making waist-high thickets that slap you painfully. The hairs are hollow, containing the compounds acetylcholine, histamine, and formic acid which collectively deliver a sting reminiscent of a bee sting. The pain for me lasts only a few minutes, but sensitive people can hurt for 24 hours. Folklore says the juice from the stem of the nettle will treat the pain of the sting from the leaves. Also recommended for in-the-field aid are dock leaves (curly dock, Rumex crispus especially) which are often found growing near stinging nettles.
Nettles are an excellent food. Putting them in hot water destroys the toxin and wilts the leaves, so almost immediately a stinging leaf turns into a delicious green very like spinach. They are particularly rich in vitamins and minerals. In the spring, the new shoots can be eaten raw, because for a few weeks they lack the stinging hairs.
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Traditional medicine made extensive use of stinging nettles. Culpeper, a popular early 17th century physician who summarized well the treatments of his time, recommended concotions of nettles for respiratory problems, swelling, inflammation, rheumatism, to aid issues of childbirth, as a diuretic, to expel kidney stones, to ease pains of the sides, and drive out worms from children. He further advised taking a decoction of the seeds as an antidote for poisons from dog bites (rabies) to mandrake and to counter lethargy. He further wrote to use stinging nettles to stop bleeding and to clear up old and festering sores. From at least Roman times, stinging nettles have been an important medicinal plant.
Modern medicine has found stinging nettles to be effective medicine. It is currently recommended, based on modern medical research, for treating rheumatism, urinary infections, and bladder and kidney stones. Beyond the most carefully conducted studies, stinging nettles are widely used today for treating enlarged prostates, allergies, and sore muscles, with lots of people attesting to the efficacy and a bit of scientific support. This continues to be an important medicinal plant, commercially produced and marketed as extracts and powders.
People also take advantage of the sting of the leaves, hitting themselves with fresh leaves, to relieve rheumatism, arthritis, and numbness. Folklore said that beating a man about the hips with nettles acted as an aphrodesiac. Roman soldiers in England reportedly kept warm by hitting themselves with nettles. These last two probably worked, though surely there are better options.
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| stinging nettle, Urtica dioica |
This has gotten very long. Nettles were also used as a fiber plant and a dye plant. Readily recognized, they have abundant folklore. I will cover those in a future post.
Comments and corrections welcome.
References
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