My stinging nettle doesn't sting!

I don't normally test this, but I noticed the leaves on this nettle were a bit narrower than usual and wondered whether it might be fen nettle (Urtica galeopsifolia). It did not sting me! I have noticed though that many of my nettle plants seem to have fewer stinging hairs when I look closely, so I'm wondering whether it is something that reduces when the plants go to flower.
Has anyone else noticed their stinging nettles losing their sting? Or do I really have some fen nettle!

Any chance the skin on your hands is just hard enough not to get stung?  How do your wrists do?

It depends, are you a lumper or a splitter?

The nettle I ate for dinner was slender nettle, another less stinging variety. They typically like part shade and are more common in natural habitats like forest openings.

Mine are as evil as always -- continuing our eternal combat I got swiped by a seed-laden sneaker that I could not yoink and dismember on the spot. So back to the house for preventative first aid -- scrape the affected area with a sharp blade in three directions, then bathe the areas at risk in high concentration salt solution, so strong there are still undissolved crystals. It works.

All stinging nettles are not created equal!  My local ones - Urtica urens
sting, but the 'pain' doesn't last.  The ones from my childhood in the UK were beasts by comparison, and the sovereign remedy was a dock leaf - usually to be found close by.  I tried an image comparison, but it wasn't helpful - why am I surprised.  I'd give thanks for a non-stinging variety and encourage them, and feed them to the compost.

Gray, I get stung easily by other nettles, so I don't think it is tough hands! I wouldn't normally just hold a leaf like this.

Maieshe, I think slender nettle is native to America, so is unlikely to be in the UK. As you point out the stinging nettle and fen nettle are considered to be related, possibly even the same, so it may just be natural variation in my population.

Douglas, thanks for the tip on reducing the sting effect - I may give that a try next time I'm testing whether a nettle stings!

Apparently Urtica urens can be found in the UK, but I'm pretty sure this is a standard perennial nettle (or possibly fen nettle). I think I will keep an eye on the plant and see how it develops next year. If it remains stingless that will be quite exciting and it gets a stay of execution! Most nettles in my garden get removed eventually, although I have several happy clumps that I just cut back for mulch and/or playing with making fibre.

That does not look like Stinging Nettle to me so I ask Mr google who know it all:

Lamiums, commonly known as deadnettles, are an interesting group of plants that superficially resemble stinging nettles. In fact, they don't have any stinging ability and their resemblance to stinging nettles is to deter herbivores from eating them. Species can be annuals or perennials, with many valued for their ground cover abilities, pollinator-friendly flowers and preference of shady areas.

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/lamium-orvala/

I'm pretty sure it isn't a dead nettle. I used to call white dead nettles 'honey suck' for the nectar in their flowers, which look more like flowers than true nettles do. If you got it right (before the ants!) you could get a sweet hit from plucking and sucking the base of the flower.
I don't have any white dead nettle here, I think I may have some very much smaller pink dead nettle, and also a garden cultivar called 'White Nancy'

Lamium White Nancy

source

I mentioned slender nettle as a possible counterpart on this side of the ocean to your fen nettle—both considered either species or subspecies of the stinging nettle depending on whom you ask.

I also forgot to mention, I notice that stinging nettle stings less, regardless of variety, in rich, moist soil in part shade. When the conditions are less favorable they are more likely to develop more stinging hairs and sharper to protect themselves.

Do you just test on the narrow new leaves or the old ones? Do you mean the plant is getting less stingy as it grows or it's whole different type of plant?

Interesting observation Maieshe. We have a damp cool climate, so presumably the nettles generally are less stingy then, (although I wouldn't have noticed this myself) We have observed locally that they tend to grow rather tougher in general - so not as nice for edibles, even when my friend imported a plant that was nice elsewhere, it grew hairier here.

May - I looked at similar leaves on different plants. I didn't look closely at the older leaves on this plant though. I'll check it tomorrow. What I can do (carefully!) is try and take a photo under the microscope of the leaves - we should be able to see the stinging hairs more clearly then. I can compare the older leaves on this plant, and similar leaves on more stingy plants.

Nancy Reading wrote:Interesting observation Maieshe. We have a damp cool climate, so presumably the nettles generally are less stingy then, (although I wouldn't have noticed this myself) We have observed locally that they tend to grow rather tougher in general - so not as nice for edibles, even when my friend imported a plant that was nice elsewhere, it grew hairier here.

Your climate is windier though, right? Being out in the open wind seems like an indicator for stings. It might be wind rather than sun, I just notice it because sun and wind tend to be correlated here. I can imagine they would grow stouter and tougher and stingier.

It could also be that U. dioica is just more common in disturbed open sections, and U. gracilis in forest gaps.

Lower nitrogen might also help them to be less hairy and tough, perhaps?

Definitely food for thought. We live in the hot, arid, and windy high desert, and our nettles are brutal... tough and nasty, no way would we touch them never mind eat them... we stay as far away as possible, I think this variety chases people too.

I have always wondered about people handling and eating them, I never understood it, but most of these folks were from much milder, wetter climates.

This post has me laughing out loud!
Yes I had the evil kind as a child. I got thrown, by an 8 year old bully, into a thicket of the stuff growing inside a hollow of some kind of scrub bush, wearing only a pair of shorts and sandals at age 4. Welts all over LMAO. Still remember a cold bath, I think they may have been capable of chasing people too, well not really . I hope no one ever tries to genetically modify them! Imagine Triffid nettles!!!

Nancy, mine are in a wet mild climate as well, Gatineau mountains at 650', and it seems I can handle them when young shoots, even transplant them without significant irritation, bare hands, wrists, thighs...

I do have a few four foot high forests of the stuff on top of fairly new compost, awaiting me getting clothed from head to toe, but probably I will just wear gloves and be careful, but they need beheading like last year, and laying down as green manure. This year I have for a bunch of summer squash seedlings currently primary leaves only, (the scallop / spaceship climbing kind). The season being so short, squash seeds only started germinating last week, and peppers two days ago.

Luckily I can behead, then leave well alone once the squash seedlings can be transplanted there next week. At least last year, I observed that mine lie low after an attack so they are well worth the nuisance. In my yard, they are easy enough to deal with, and the wild leeks seem happy enough with them, so some of it gets to stay as "forest."

I actually tried for a few years to get stinging nettles to grow here, and am very happy with the results.

However, it's really good to have an antidote for nettle sting Douglas -- many thanks for the tip!

They look like ordinary stinging nettles to me. But then it could still be that 'fen nettle'. I don't know.

I think that one can get 'used to' the sting of stinging nettles. The more you touch them with bare hands (or arms, legs, etc.) the less you feel the sting. At least: that's my experience (maybe it isn't the same for everybody).
I grow (at the allotment garden) and collect (from the wild too) stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) for the fibers. If I don't have gloves around, I pick them with bare hands. Often I do not feel any sting. And if I feel it, it doesn't really hurt, it doesn't become visible (like rash).

I just got a couple of nettle plants from some Amish I know. The girl told me that if you hold your breath while touching it, you won't feel it. Didn't try it lol

Helloo,

The nettles notice me, feel the vibration of my approaching footsteps and they quake: it’s the nettle monster.
Yes, I harvest nettles to dry, grind and eat them.
The seeds are harvested separately and they too are dried.
These are labours of love.
The entire plant is a wonderful addition to the kitchen and great for the medicine chest.

Sorry, can’t help with the identification.
Dead nettle yes, with purple flowers, haven’t sampled it as fodder, yet.
The white flower variety looks very attractive.
Do we have an inkling as to which insects the different varieties welcome?

Somebody cleverly mentioned dock leaves as a remedy for nettle burn.
A young man of my acquaintance suggested one stroke the plant in an upward motion, from root upwards, to disable the burn, prior to picking.
Not a bad strategy I confirm, however there is usually a stray stem which manages to get between my sole and my open air footwear.

I haven’t noticed or perhaps not paid attention to the difference in nettle toughness according to the insane weather variations we live with.
Thank you for the heads up.

Very interesting post, and what timing - I am experiencing and wondering the same thing! I had my wife test the nettles growing here and it stung her, but not me. I was thinking maybe that because I've been taking a spagyric tincture of nettle leaf and root that perhaps the reaction has lessened, but after researching the variety growing here (East Coast USA) I think that it is actually Wood Nettle. The leaves are more ovate and the profile not as tall. It is in the Urticacea family, but different genus (Laportea canadensis). It is apparently used interchangeably with Urtica dioca in food/medicine. There is a slight skin irritation (more for my wife) but nothing requiring gloves for me.

I love this old poem:

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

I pick nettles bare-handed. If you pluck firmly upward, you'll almost never get stung. But brush against it downward and you'lll soon know if it stings or not.

Can wood nettle cross pollinate with stinging nettle? Mine still sting allot which I want because I use it for joint pain.

Nick Mick wrote:Can wood nettle cross pollinate with stinging nettle? Mine still sting allot which I want because I use it for joint pain.

I don't think they can cross. Wood nettle is Laportea and stinging nettle is Urtica. So probably they are not that closely related.

Several years ago I had a favorite stinging nettle patch.  After a year or so of interacting with the plants I developed an "immunity" and the sting no longer affected me.  I have not recently tested to see if that stayed with me or if I'd need to build it up again.  I have heard that there are people who sting themselves on purpose to get some health benefit from the plant.  However I do not recall off the top of my head what health benefit they were going for.  

R-T Warren wrote:Definitely food for thought. We live in the hot, arid, and windy high desert, and our nettles are brutal... tough and nasty, no way would we touch them never mind eat them... we stay as far away as possible, I think this variety chases people too.

I have always wondered about people handling and eating them, I never understood it, but most of these folks were from much milder, wetter climates.

In the extreme high desert of the Indian Himalayas, nettles are very much collected and used, though the local species, U. hyberborea, do sting vigorously. I've collected them on a high pass at 17,000+ feet above sea level, and down in the inhabited valleys at ±10,000 feet. I've also planted common stinging nettles in my garden at 10,500 feet.

I use gloves to collect them. Well, I've also collected them using random shopping bags that I had on hand when I found them, but I much prefer gloves. They lose their sting entirely the second they go into boiling water. I wash and dry a lot of them, to make an easy quick dried vegetable that can be added to soups without any further preparation throughout the winter. Nettles lost their sting when dried, too; or they still have a mild sting if you handle dried nettles continuously for 10 minutes, which happens after they're dried and I'm removing the tough stems before storage, but then the sting is more of a glow than a burn.

Inge, I think your observation is correct to a point. Although I get under the roots to pull 1/4" stalks or bigger, because the thorns can hurt even if the sting doesn't, I made the mistake of entering a thicket with open soles sandals and promptly delayed my onslaught for a day.

If my little finger that got broken as a kid and acts up a bit is deliberately brushed against nettle leaves to relieve my problem, but my toes are virgin territory and need protecting.

I recently cut down my fallow nettles I deliberately cultivated, (nettles are the first edible veg) laying the stalks along the edge of one compost mound of them, using cheap regular cotton knit gloves, because those spines can hurt! I was at this job for about 3 hours and wasn't interested in finding out my limits!

Those are scallop summer squash, zone friendly from the local seed supplier, on top of this year's nettle cuttings (short season but I might get a bumper crop anyway)