FREE: Stinging Nettle Plant 50 Seeds

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Stinging Nettle - Urtica dioica. Tall herbaceous plant that has many uses in organic and biodynamic gardening (green manure, insecticide, etc.). Used also as a herbal tea. Watch out though for the stinging hairs covering this plant (it can be very painful). Male and female plants. 6 high or more. Perennial (zone 3). A most potent herb, the many qualities compensating for the stung fingers that inevitably accompany the harvest. The sting is caused by the formic acid in the plant and can be soothed by rubbing the spot with dock leaves (Rumex obtusifolus). Providence, somehow, usually plants the dock alongside the nettle beds. Nettle is like a beast with a heart of gold.
Nettle is a perennial 2-7 feet high: the root is creeping and branching, the plant is clothed in stinging hairs and bears opposite, cordate, deeply serrate, pointed leaves which are downy underneath; heart-shaped, finely toothed leaves and it has a clump of upright, four-angled, 1-2 foot stems are covered with downy hair and with venomous spines; emits an acrid fluid when touched, causing pain. Each spine is a hollow needle filled with venom which is released whenever the plant is brushed. The venom stings like a bee and produces a red rash. The virulent qualities are destroyed by cooking (boiling or steaming) or drying the plant. The small, petal-less, greenish flowers grow in axillary clusters in "tassels", male and female on separate plants; blooms from July to September. Fruits are small nutlets enclosed in dried sepals.

It is an old English custom to drink nettle tea on occasion. This habit was believed to have been brought with the Roman conquerors to the Isles, who used the tea as a bracer in the rigorous climate.

Plant to keep unwanted visitors out of your yard and garden.