Nettles have been the bane of my existence on more than one occasion. For the average outdoors-person, they're not much of a threat, as a good pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt will effectively shield you against their sting. But for someone who likes to run around barefoot wearing only shorts . . .

In my childhood especially, I have several vivid recollections of encounters with nettles, including one in which I carried my then-girlfriend through a swamp of them, and afterwards felt my legs burn with a fury that makes me wince even now.

But nettles are also one of the most amazing plants out there. Let's get to know them better.

                                                  Two Stinging Nettles rise in the middle-top of the picture, while
                                                  Wood Nettles dominate the bottom of the photo.  Note the
                                                  difference in width of the leaves.

There are two varieties. Well, actually, there are many species, but only two you're likely to encounter near our home in mid-west Wisconsin. They are called Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), and the Wood Nettle (Laportea canadensis). I, however, like to call them by their childhood names -- Nettle (dioica), and the dreaded Swamp Nettle (canadensis).

The thing about these plants is that they sting. No. Let me correct that. They bite. If you really get into them, and your leg swipes up against a stem, a thousand hypodermics break off into your flesh and inject a delicious mixture of poisons which induce a sort of painful, burning itch. The good news is that the itching only lasts for about ten minutes for most people. The bad news is that if you have three hundred meters of swamp ahead of you, you're in for a lot more bites.

These are very gregarious plants. They usually grow in great colonies, and some river-islands are literally covered with them. They love the damp. If you are bare-legged and have to make a crossing, consider smearing your flesh with a generous coating of mud.

The regular nettles are tall -- they'll get your face if you've got hobbit blood. They pack a wallop of a sting, but in general they're milder than their smaller, thicker-leaved cousins, the Swamp Nettle. Just compare the spikes to get an idea of who is more wicked:

                                       

                            canadensis                                                                                                    dioica

But there are a lot of good things to say about nettles as well, including a host of purported medicinal properties, none of which I have personally tested enough to give you a conclusive report upon. But if you're hungry . . .

All you have to do is boil them. I prefer the tops, with tender stem and smaller leaves. You can pick with your fingers if you don't mind the itch (if you pick with a slight 'rising' fashion, you can learn to pick them without getting stung), but most people prefer gloves. Boil them like you would spinach (if you're the type to boil spinach -- otherwise, boil them anyway, since the boiling renders the stingers inactive).  These plants are drenched in vitamins, and you'll get the best nutrition if you eat the boiled greens and then save the water to make into a tea (experiment to get a good flavor -- a little lemon juice or honey can make it more palatable). The greens have a distinctive flavor, and if they please your tongue then you have a healthy and abundant food source if you know where to find them. They have tons of protein, a high vitamin content, and are reputed to cure a host of ills, including inflammation.

Add to that the fact that a number of butterfly species depend on the nettle as a host plant for their eggs and larvae, and you've got a plant that is pretty nice to have around.

One last thing I'd like to mention. When I was in my late teens, I 'made friends' with the nettles. I can't really say how this happened, and it will probably shoot my credibility to heck with many readers, but one day I sat down in front of a bunch of nettles and started talking to them. I made a sort of deal that I wouldn't try to smoosh any of them when I walked through the swamps (up until then I had made a practice of kicking them down with my feet to clear a path), and asked if they please wouldn't sting me. For quite a few years after that, I was able to walk through nettle swamps without ever getting stung. I'm not sure whether to attribute this to fantasy or not, but the memory is quite clear. These days, I smoosh nettles with impunity and nettles bite me with all the poison they can muster. But maybe I'll try to make friends again before too long . . .

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