Although painful to the touch, stinging nettle is a nourishing edible plant and an important component of the herbal medicine chest.
Even nettle's sting has medicinal properties and can actually restore function to frozen joints. Whipping the skin with fresh nettles has been known to relieve symptoms of arthritis, perhaps through stimulation of the lymphatic and circulatory system, although people with highly sensitive skin may develop a painful rash from the contact. The hairs that line the stems and the undersides of the leaves are actually hollow, like miniature hypodermic needles that inject formic acid (the same chemical that makes the bite of a stinging ant so painful) into the skin when a human brushes against the hair.
There are various plants whose leaves can be chewed and applied to a nettle sting to neutralize the pain. These include yellow dock, yarrow, and plantain.
Nettles are also intensely nourishing as a vegetable or as a tea. Cooking dispels the sting, as does drying. Fresh nettles may be simmered in a little water for ten to twenty minutes for a spinach-like vegetable rich in protein, iron, calcium, Vitamins A, C, and B-complex, and many essential trace minerals. The cooking water may be drunk as a delicious, hearty broth. Tea made from dried nettle leaves provides similar nutrients and may be drunk regularly as a blood builder, iron supplement, kidney tonic, and immunity enhancer. Many herbalists teach that nettles should be harvested before flowering, at which point constituents form that may be irritating to the kidneys.
There are several varieties of true nettles. Stinging nettle, the species most often used medicinally, is often found on damp ground, usually in full or partial sun but sometimes in open woods. It tends to occur in large patches. The plant grows about three feet high, with long-pointed, sharply toothed leaves which are opposite, that is, occurring in pairs along the stem. The stem is stout, grooved, and lined with stinging hairs, which also occur along the leaf stems and underside of the leaf midrib. The flowers grow in little greenish clusters along weak stems that arch out from the bases of the upper leaves. Nettles are sometimes mistaken for members of the mint family, especially the deadnettles, but none of the mints have stinging hairs, and many of them are aromatic.
Tall nettle is a closely related species, with fewer stinging hairs, that grows up to nine feet tall and is sometimes used interchangeably with stinging nettle.
Wood nettles grow in damp, rich woods. The leaves are wider and rounder than those of stinging nettles, and the leaves grow in an alternate pattern, not joining in pairs at the stem. They do have stinging hairs, as hikers wearing shorts can attest, but the sting is milder and short-lived. The flavor, and probably the medicinal properties, are less intense as well. Wood nettles resemble two other woodland species, white snakeroot and stoneroot, but both of these species have opposite leaves and no stinging hairs.
See also the blog entitled Stinging Nettle.
