As the water recedes

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Clean-up

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Carlton Street Footbridge

Carlton Street Footbridge

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Welcome!

I'd like to welcome the sudden burst of new friends who have added this journal. I hope you like reading about pigeons and rats and poison ivy and such. I also write about my life, complain about my job, review movies and music (usually obsolete) and ask for advice. Just thought I'd warn you. Nature abhors a text-only post, so please enjoy this catbird on knotweed picture I took today.

365 Urban Species. #136: Stinging Nettles

Urban species #136: Stinging nettles Urtica dioica

Stinging nettles is an aptly named herb, well-armed with thousands of tiny hypodermic syringes full of poison. Brush up against it, and several of these needles deploy their payload into your skin, resulting in tiny itchy tingly painful welts. The needle is referred to as a "hair," and the structure of it is interesting: the end of the hair is a single pointed cell, which is silicized and brittle, to break off in the skin. The effect varies from person to person, some people suffering for minutes, some for days.

I don't mean to insult friends who eat wild foods, or are into herbal medicine, but some of you lunatics actually eat this plant! To the latter's credit, stinging nettles seem to possess numerous medicinal effects, and the plant is the subject of countless (5,320 according to google) scientific studies. For my part, I'm glad to have learned what it looks like, and to attempt to never come in contact with it again for the rest of my life.

Though its appearance is fairly nondescript, it can be recognized by the fact that its leaves grow in opposite pairs, and if you are observant, the defensive hairs are plainly visible. Stinging nettles is one of those species, like the red fox, that was present in North America, but was introduced from Eurasia anyway. It grows along wet areas in city parks-- such as those stream edges that may have been landscaped years ago, but have given way to wild plants, as well as drainage ditches.