4 NETTLE Urtica dioica
Fond of damp, nitrogen-rich soil in cultivated ground, woodland and pastures. The catkin-like flowers of nettles appear from May to August.
Nettles have a long cultural history and many famous benefits, from fibres to food. However, its use in these traditional ways has waned and its once positive qualities have been swamped by the negative.
Firstly, it does as its name suggests – it stings. Look closely and you will see a felt of bristles and hairs clothing the distinctive furrowed and pleated leaves, and the stems. They also make excellent colonisers of abandoned ground, due to their fecundity. Each female stem (males are on separate plants, hence the name dioica, which means ‘two houses’) makes 500–20,000 seeds, and the plant is able to spread via a network of fast-creeping and highly distinctive yellow roots and stolons, too.
But, as a wildlife reserve in miniature, a clump of nettles is hard to beat. Over 40 kinds of insect are unaffected by the barricade of pain afforded to other creatures. Instead, they benefit from its protection. Moths, such as the burnished brass, spectacle and garden tiger, as well as some of the brightest of our butterflies – red admiral, small tortoiseshell, comma and peacock – all lay their eggs on the freshest growth. Nettles also provide a curtain of secrecy, and many animals hide in their depths.
The seeds of nettles ( right) are themselves a food source for many birds late in the season, while clouds of aphids that give way to sap-sucking herds are in turn picked on by many insectivorous birds, and hoovered up by hoverfly and ladybirds.