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Laportea grossa
Also called Spotty Nettle
Laportea grossa, or spotted nettle, is an African plant in the family Urticaceae, and one of 31 species in the genus. This species occurs in shady places in coastal and escarpment forests, closed woodland and on streambanks from George through the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal to southern Mozambique. Young leaves of this species are cooked and eaten as a vegetable.
It has decorative leaves marked by conspicuous white spots and is covered in stinging hairs. It is a sprawling, herbaceous perennial or annual, growing to about 1 m tall. Its soft, erect stems armed with stinging hairs have a tendency to root at the nodes, and are therefore readily propagated from cuttings. Leaves are alternate, triangular, coarsely toothed, and also covered in stinging hairs.
West Indian woodnettle · Canadian woodnettle · Hawai'i woodnettle · River Nettle · Wood Nettle
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Laportea grossa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
