subject: What's A Nettle [print this page] So nettle is the general name of flowering plants belonging to the genus Urtica family Urticaceae. Nettle are mostly herbaceous perennial plants in which few are annual and few of them are shrubby.
The prominent family member of genus is stinging nettle Urtica dioica and is mostly found in Europe, north Africa, Asia, and North America. So nettle do have other species alot having same properties . In this way one will always find nettle with stinging hairs along iwth medicinal usages. These nettel properties have negative and positive properties both such as the ongaonga tree found in newzealand is found to poisnous killing horses , dogs and even human b eings.
Actually the toxin secreted from nettle do not easily settles in the body as result found to be poisonous. Readers of nettle contains formic acid, serotonin and histamine, oxalic acid and tartaric acid etc. So one should be cautious while dealing with nettle. The family Urticaceae does have plants known as nettles not belonging to genus Urtica. These plants mostly found in North America, from Nova Scotia to Florida, and the false nettle Boehmeria cylindrica which is mostly found in United States. So one should not be confused by the false views that nettle is consideredas sting. Nettle is used in medicines, food and many other usages. The whole historical evidence of usages of nettle in medicine, folk remedies, cooking and fiber production shows only one species - Urtica dioica. So after this one cannot say that all the nettle have similar properties. Some of them are life threatening. Otherwise most of the species of nettle is quite safer and could be consumed as vegetables after getting steamed.
Users of nettle should know other families of urticaceae having powerful stings such as Dendrocnide excelsa, Gympie known as Dendrocnide moroides, Wood Nettle known as Laportea canadensis, Nettle Tree known as Urera baccifera . Several other plants having the name nettle but they have nothing to do with Urticacea nor sting. Such plants are head-nettle (Lamium spp.), hedge-nettle (Stachys spp.) belonging to the Lamiaceae and mint family, devil's nettle, Carolina horsenettle, and Spurge-nettle (Cnidolscolus stimulosus) from Euphorbiaceae etc.
