True to my word, I’ve been noticing the green things lately. The plants that don’t flower showily the way we think flowers do. I have learned the difference between the heart-shaped leaves of common blue violet and pennywort; I have plucked leaves of broadleaf plantain—ovate, long-petioled, parallel-veined—while walking, tearing them into a poultice to rub on insect stings. I have spotted here and there the serrated leaves of wild roses, the blooms of which have died back and are turning now to rosehips.
I live, for now, in a house at the edge of a field at the edge of the woods. When I walk through the field, there are parts that feel like meadow and parts that feel like marsh, and where the grasses meet forest and tree there are stands, bright green, searingly green, the greenest neon green you’ll ever see, of stinging nettle. When I first met nettle, I thought I recognized it; though I took its picture, I was afraid to touch it. I was afraid of being stung.
Urtica dioica is named for its sting; urtica derives from the Latin urere, which means to burn or scorch. The leaves and stem of a nettle plant are covered in fine hairs, some of which are hollow and act like hypodermic needles, breaking off when brushed against and injecting chemicals that cause a painful sting. Up close, a nettle stem looks positively spiny, the fine needles glinting like wet weaponry. A nettle’s sting creates a wave of red, raised welts which can last for days.
Yet nettle’s uses are both edible and medicinal. Indigenous Americans harvested young nettle leaves in spring because they grew before other food plants were available; in Europe, where nettle is also a native species, there are recipes for soups and stews using the leaves. Cooked or blanched, the leaves taste similar to spinach, and are nutrient dense, which makes them good for foraging. And though the plant stings the skin when touched, it’s been used as a pain reliever for arthritis and lower back pain. Some research has even indicated that nettle’s sting is, paradoxically, anti-inflammatory.