Small nettle
Urtica urens
Family · Urticaceae · Irritating
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The small annual nettle of gardens and wall bases, which stings more than the large one despite being half the size. It grows on rich disturbed soil, and appears in winter.
Town and roadside · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Walls and rocks
Also known asannual nettle, burning nettle
How to tell it
A plant ten to sixty centimetres, far smaller than common nettle. Opposite, oval, deeply toothed leaves, the stalk nearly as long as the blade, which separates it from the large one. Minute green flowers in short upright clusters at the axils, shorter than the leaf stalk. Covered all over in injecting hairs.
What it is confused with
Stinging nettle
Urtica dioica
Common nettle is perennial, reaches a metre and a half and has hanging flower clusters longer than the leaf stalk; the small one is annual, low, with short upright clusters. Both sting and both were eaten cooked.
What it is for
The young leaves were eaten cooked in soups across Europe, like common nettle's, and heat destroys the stinging hairs. Traditional use. It grows almost always in fertilised gardens and at urinated wall bases, which is the main reason not to gather it.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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