The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Urtica
Also called Nettles, Stinging Nettles
Urtica is a genus of herbaceous annuals and perennials, rarely shrubs, covered in stinging hairs; the name 'stinging nettle' mostly refers to U. dioica. Grow it in moist, fertile soil in sun or part shade, and wear gloves when handling it.
Urtica is a genus of flowering plants in the family Urticaceae. Many species have stinging hairs and may be called nettles or stinging nettles (the latter name applying particularly to U. dioica). The generic name Urtica derives from the Latin for 'sting'.
Due to the stinging hairs, Urtica are rarely eaten by herbivores, but provide shelter for insects. The fiber has historically been used by humans, and cooking preparations exist.
Besides the stinging hairs in general, in New Zealand U. ferox is classified as a poisonous plant, most commonly upon skin contact.
Due to the stinging hairs, Urtica species are rarely eaten by herbivores, but provide shelter for insects such as aphids, butterfly larvae, and moths. They are also consumed by caterpillars of numerous Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), such as the tortrix moth Syricoris lacunana and several Nymphalidae, e.g. Vanessa atalanta, a red admiral butterfly.
Fabric woven of nettle fiber was found in burial sites in Denmark dating to the Bronze Age, and in clothing fabric, sailcloth, fishing nets, and paper via the process called retting (microbial enzymatic degradation, similar to linen processing). Other processing methods include mechanical and chemical.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Urtica 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.
