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As a kid in rural Gloucestershire, I remember wandering round hedgerows and knowing about the local flora - which ones were poison, which ones made good itching powder, that sort of thing. It sounds quite twee, I guess. I distinctly remember learning that nettles stung, unless they had flowers - because nettles with flowers don’t sting. Once it gets to late summer and the nettles get their flowers, they lose their power.
To cut a long story short, my 6 yo will never trust me again, having stung himself on a flowering nettle. So I Googled it and I can’t find anything to support my assertion.
So have I misremembered? Does anyone else know what I’m on about??
I’m 99% sure I was talking about the same flower at different times of year (not two species of nettle). Maybe it only applies to Gloucestershire nettles?
Probably confused for dead nettles.
Probably confused for dead nettles.
I also suspect this... what kind of flowers?
Stinging nettle flowers look like this (and make no difference to the stings!)
Nettle hairs lie down in one direction.
If you learn to hold, stroke, kick, lick(!) the right way, you don't get stung.
This was a fine art practised by my brother and I - and now a great party trick.
IME, nettles sting the moment they are out the ground.
Yeh you.muat be thinking of red/white dead nettles which don't sting 😂
Did you not squish up some dock leaf and spit and rub it in the stings?
as Longdog wrote, dead nettles don't sting. They are much smaller, lower to the ground and have a very obvious pea-like flower.
Nettles do have 2 growing seasons a year but definitely sting the moment they emerge.
My dad told me that one. LIES.
I have always strongly believed that nettle sting is more potent early in the season than later when IME it seems to wane to a degree.
I have never manage to decide/find out whether it is because early in the season the plant is more vibrant and briming with itching inducing chemicals, or because after months of getting continuously stung my body builds up a certain level of tolerance, until the start of the new season.
Well bugger, I’ve always believed that too.
You are not the only ones
martymac Full Member
If the nettles are flowering they don’t sting. Little white flowers.Edit: a quick google suggests ive been wrong for 40 years
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/is-nettle-immunity-a-thing/
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There are several species of flowering dead nettles which do not sting at any point in their lifecycles (flowers or not). Flowers can be white/pink/purple/yellow. They are usually under 1ft tall.
Stinging nettles will always sting you and do have flowers but they are not conspicuous, so you may not even notice them.
The real bastards are the dwarf nettles, not least because they have a propensity for hiding in the back of a flower border and when you grap one it feels like you've got hold of a wasp nest.
What Jamz says and Matt too about the hair direction.
Nettles are definitely less potent this time of year than back in April/May when they first emerge. Rode through an overgrown trail last week without gloves and got barely a single sting. if I’d done that even 4 weeks ago it would have been agony!
Did you not squish up some dock leaf and spit and rub it in the stings?
The nettle itself is much better at this. Crush the leaves between rocks and rub the liquid/green goo on the sting. Much more effective than a dock.
It’s literally the rubbing action that works, absolutely nothing else except maybe placebo.
Stinging nettles:
I was always told that the smaller plants on the edge of the clump were stingier than the larger plants in the middle (the exterior plants putting more energy into defences while the interior plants more energy into growth) could be rubbish though.
Dead nettle. My party trick is grabbing some and encouraging someone else to try it and watch as they grab the wrong plant. (Same applies to new Holly growth before it's hardened up)
It’s literally the rubbing action that works, absolutely nothing else except maybe placebo
Not the case with nettles. They are full of all sorts of chemicals which we're still discovering.
They have a good dose of antihistamines in there for a start.
http://europepmc.org/article/med/2192379
Latium Album - White Dead-nettle
I want to encourage these at the bottom of my garden - bees love them.
Stinging nettles - not so much. And I’ve got stung on my legs several times just recently, the potency doesn’t seem to have lessened.
Stinging nettles – not so much.
Red Admiral butterflies (and possibly others) lay their eggs on stingers so we encourage both in our garden but we're fortunate to have enough space that we can keep them out of harms way.
I am definitely on the camp of resistance builds up through the year. Those first few stings on the legs in spring definitely smart more but then I ask myself, are nettles less stingy later in the years because they are running out of stinging barbs from using them on saps like me?
Never heard of dead nettles but I assumed the op was thinking of woundwort rather than an actual nettle.
Either way, stinging nettles are worse than wasps in so much as they always sting, lots, and without provocation. Fortunately they can't fly.
Having been stung on my cheek two days ago and still tingling I'm pretty sure that stinging nettles haven't reduced in potency yet! Glad I had glasses on.
Never heard of dead nettles but I assumed the op was thinking of woundwort rather than an actual nettle.
Woundworts are part of the dead nettle family (Lamiaceae). It's actually a quite a large family - it includes mints, thyme, clary, calamints, marjoram, ground ivy, woundworts, horehounds, selfheal, bugle, germanders and of course dead nettles themselves.
Stinging nettles (common and dwarf) are in a different family - Urticaceae - which is much smaller with only four species including (interestingly?) pellitory-of-the-wall, which is very common but doesn't sting.