Tender-handed, stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains.
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
This little guy is Urtica diocia, better known as Stinging Nettle.
It is found all over the world in mild and temperate climates and has a long history of use as a source of traditional medicine, food, tea, and textile raw materials. It's an old treatment for arthritis as its' stings increase blood flow.
In England, it was once thought that the Romans were the first to import the plant. Nettle fibre evidence from a cist on Dartmoor, however, suggests that the plant was collected locally as far back as the Bronze Age.
https://archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/cist-whitehorse-hill.htm
In palaeoecology, it is used as a disturbance indicator, such as on sites of abandoned habitation/construction, within communities of cultivated ground, and on areas enriched with cattle and sheep dung.
Nettles are generally considered to be weeds due to their rapid growth but offer great benefits in rejuvenating over-fertilized soils and increasing local biodiversity.
Personally, I like it in a nice tea. It is surprisingly good. 🍵
Wiki upload: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urtica_dioica_(Stinging_Nettle)_pollen.tif
I uploaded this a while ago with my beaten up Brunell hobbiest microscope and have since gotten much better ones. Going to resurect this series at some point but here's one for now.
