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West Indian woodnettle

Laportea aestuans

Also called West Indian Nettle, Stinging Nettle

West Indian woodnettle
Photo: Alexey Yakovlev, CC BY-SA 4.0

West Indian woodnettle is a weedy annual herb in the nettle family, found across tropical and subtropical regions, often as an introduced weed. It is grown or tolerated mainly as a wild plant rather than a garden ornamental, and it grows easily in warm, moist conditions.

Family
Urticaceae (Nettle family)
Grows as
Annual
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep soil evenly moist during active growth; it tolerates periodic dryness once established.
Soil
Any fertile, moist, well-drained soil or garden loam.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C, as it is frost-tender.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Toxic: The leaves and stems have stinging hairs that inject irritating chemicals on contact, causing pain, burning and itching on the skin.
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
Tropics & Subtropics
Climate
wet tropical

About

Laportea aestuans (Urtica aestuans), the West Indian woodnettle, is an annual herb of the Urticaceae or nettle family.

It is possibly native to tropical Africa, although it now is widespread as an introduced species throughout both the western hemisphere and eastern hemisphere tropics and subtropics, including the USA (California, Florida, Puerto Rico), Central America, the West Indies, India, Sumatra and Java.

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Laportea aestuans by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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