Never knowingly encountered one, growing up in rural IL and running barefoot through a whole lot of various weeds. Lucky me, apparently.
On a related note, this thread inspired me to try to find out what the unpleasant weed I DID used to traipse across was. I was all ready to dig in for a laborious search, but managed to ID as “bull thistle” it in three seconds by googling “weed.” With safesearch on.
When I was young, I found that if I could just get past the first minute without touching the sting, then the pain dropped off quickly, but if I itched it right away it seemed to make it last longer (not sure if it really did or not).
Apparently you can use nettles in the same way as the flax plant–the fibers in the stalk will make a perfectly good fabric. Anyone know much about it?
Nettles found in NY, Hudson valley - I associate them with barn yards and around chicken coops.
What’s a dock leaf? Is that short for burdock?
I learned to rub a plantain leaf on nettle burn and mosquito bites. It works pretty well, and we are loaded with plantain weeds in MN.
Along the Texas Gulf coast I’ve always heard/referred to it as ‘Bull Nettle’. I can only recall being stung just once, when I was about twelve or so.
Man, that stuff is nasty! :eek:
The pain is pretty intense, and rubbing the area only exacerbates it. Some older boys told me I shoud ‘pee’ on it and it would quit burning. :dubious:
Told 'em, “Yeah, right!”
After enduring the pain for about 15 more minutes, I decided anything is worth a try. Damn if they weren’t right! After sneaking off away from the group, I found a secluded place and proceeded to ‘pee’ on my wrist and the back of my hand.
The relief was almost immediate and complete. After about ten minutes I no longer felt any pain, at all. YMMV 
We have tons of nettles in the Pacific Northwest. I have no idea what a “dock leaf” is, but I have heard that rubbing the pollen(? not sure what they are called, the brown pods underneath the leaves) of sword fern is supposed to help with the pain.
It is all over the place here on coastal Northern California, mostly along streams and coastal areas where the fog and drizzle keeps things damp pretty much year round. I grew up being told that taking a big leaf from the nettle plant itself (the stems are the part that stings) and rubbing it on would help with the pain. Pulling a leaf off of the plant without getting stung again was one of those tricks that took time and effort to perfect.
I’ve never made nettle tea, but nettle and potato soup is a firm springtime favourite of mine.
As others have said, cooking destroys the little stinging hairs on the leaves, rendering them safe to eat.
Thick leather or vinyl gloves are best when picking this plant. The sting will penetrate thin latex or polythene (I’ve been stung by the plants I already picked when the sandwich bag I was collecting them into brushed against me.
They can be picked by hand without any protection at all. The stings are typically only effective if you brush them lightly. If you grab the plant quickly and firmly, it doesn’t usually sting, as this breaks off the hairs before they get to inject their payload.
There’s a folk rhyme about this phenomenon and it’s the source of the idiom ‘grasp the nettle’ - meaning to take firm decisive action.
By the way, they’re only worth picking as greens in early spring or later in the year if they’ve regrown after cutting down.
Not sure if someone was playing a trick on you or if you’re describing some other plant but the common nettle does have stinging hairs all over both sides of all the leaves.
An older leaf perhaps, but it was definitely leaves from the same plant, and it may be that the hard and firm method that you describe is what we were doing. It has been many many years since the last time I was stung. The application we all used wasn’t to gently rub the leaf, but to pulverize it into basically a poultice and smear that on the area.
sigh
I have had the charming experience of encountering stinging nettle on my bare ass near the NorCal coast. It involved an explosive stomach virus that wouldn’t wait and an overmodest scramble into high weeds without looking around carefully, all while being out in the middle of nowhere in the Mendocino National Forest. The worst part is I knew the second things had begun what was happening, but due to the dire intestinal distress I was in I had to suck it up until I was done or risk making a horrible mess all over myself.
I know it sounds like an abandoned joke from a particularly putrid sitcom reject pile, but sadly it is all to true. Though I retrospect I do admire my own gritty fortitude in toughing it out ;).
I’ve gathered and used nettle fiber for various low-tech projects. Nettle fiber is high quality stuff, very strong and lustrous, but extremely labor-intensive to utilize. Put your fingertips together and form a circle in front of you. That amount of nettle stalks yields a small ball of fiber.
I’ve simply peeled off the fiber from mature six-foot stalks by cracking them lengthwise and snapping the brittle, dry interior pulp off bit by bit, aboriginal-style, leaving the supple, shiny green fiber intact. Historically, there have been attempts at large-scale nettle fiber production around Europe, but all these seem to have died out due to the low yield problem. Old textile textbooks give very high strength figures for nettle fiber, so there’s nothing wrong with the material itself.
Gathering nettles bare-handed is easy - just grab the lower stalk and avoid the leaves. Nettle leaves can be eaten raw, as long as they are thoroughly mashed beforehand to break the stinging hairs.
It is a myth. There’s no chemical in dock leaves that is somehow an antidote to nettle stings. Surprised me, because I used the “remedy” many times when I was a kid and was convinced that it worked. But apparently, it’s just that the rubbing action soothes or distracts from the discomfort, which goes away quickly of its own accord.
There’s probably a bit of placebo effect in there too - and the fact that dock tends to be found in cool, shady places makes it a bit of a topical soother, even if there’s no medicinal effect happening.
I always found plantain leaves more effective at soothing nettle stings than dock.
This would explain why the most painful nettle stings seem to be from those plants that grow next to streams and rivers?
If I get stung by a nettle it hurts for a second or two and then it’s gone.
Same here. The first few times I’ve gotten stung, it was a bit surprising and annoying, but after awhile I got used to it, and didn’t bother going out of my way to avoid them. In fact, they fascinated me as a child and I would purposely brush my hand against them sometimes to get stung. (And, no, I don’t particular have a masochistic streak, other than perhaps my love for hot peppers.)
