✨Botanical Latin: Urtica dioica
✨Habitat: Waste spaces, moist soil
✨Growth Habit: Perennial, 6’+ tall at maturity. Flowers in mid-late summer
✨Parts Used: Leaves and tops most often. Roots and seeds can be used as well.
✨Harvesting: Always wear thick gloves and cover your skin! Young leaves and tops - harvest before the plant flowers. See ‘cautions’ below. Roots - in the fall, after most of the energy has returned to the root from the plant. This plant is abundant, but as it’s a perennial, remember to leave at least 75% of the plants to repopulate the area.
✨Energetics and Taste: Cool, dry, salty
✨Biochemical Constituents: chlorophyll, insoles (histamine, serotonin,) acetylcholine, silicic acid, vitamins C, B and A, silicon, calcium, magnesium, potassium, protein, fiber, iron.
All parts - Alterative, whole body and liver tonic, (fresh leaves) anti-histamine, slightly diuretic, astringent, hemostatic, galactogogue, expectorant, nutrative.
Root - Anti-lithic, diuretic
Leaves & Tops - arthritis, rheumatism, asthma, eczema, other skin eruptions, bleeding, low energy, stopped urine, urinary gravel, kidney and bladder infections, edema, enlarged prostate, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)
Freeze dried leaves: sinus infection. Proven effective, but must be freeze dried.
Seed: prostate and kidney disorders
Root: Prostate issues, urinary tract gravel/stones, stopped urination
✨Contraindications: Use in more restricted amounts when pregnant or breastfeeding, but it doesn’t have to be avoided all together. Don’t use with children under 2 years old. Use caution with children and the elderly. *
- One of the most popular herbs for nourishing herbal infusions. Rotate between nettles, oat straw, and linden for a good variety of nutrients.
- Good for the voice (folk-medicine, song of the sea)
- Relieve the sting by rubbing the juice of dock (rumex crispus) leaves on the sting. See folk traditions below.
- To aid in circulation and inflammation/joint issues like arthritis, sting the area (lightly) occasionally with nettles and let it sting, without using dock to relieve it.
- It’s popular in soups and as a potherb/cooked green. Once it’s cooked or dried, it loses its sting. I like to use it in any dish that I’d use spinach in.
- It has been used to slow postpartum bleeding.
✨Preparations and Dosage:
- Nourishing Herbal Infusion - One quart boiled water to one ounce of dried leaves/tops (or a little more by weight if using fresh leaves.) Steep in a mason jar with the lid on for at least 20 minutes, up to overnight. Strain and enjoy within 3-4 days of making it. Drink up to 1 quart/day but rotate between a few different herbs to get a variety of nutrients.
- Dry plant material by weight - 9-30g
- Capsules - 2 “00” size filled with powdered herb, 3 times a day
- Tincture - 10-60 drops, 1-4 times a day
✨Cautions: Do not ingest the leaves or tops after the plant has flowered or else risk causing a UTI.
✨Elements: Primary - 🔥Fire – Secondary - 🌱Earth
✨Planet: Mars, secondary Mercury
-All Parts: protections, warding, voice, communication, bind a spell, bring courage, prevent being struck by lightning, notice the things that often go unseen, mindfulness.
-Roots: banishing, curse breaking, relieving pain
-The leaves and tops after the plant has flowered: causing pain, sending a curse back, banishing, make someone’s oversight/willful ignorance come back to bite them
- To soothe the sting, find some dock which usually grows nearby (rumex crispus,) grab a handful and squeeze some juice out. As you rub the juice onto the nettle sting, recite:
Nettle out, Dock in // Dock remove the nettle sting
Nettle, nettle, come out // Dock, go in!
- The infusion is grounding and very earth centred. I feel like It may be connected to my Mother Goddess of the lake lands in Ontario.
- Use fresh tops (either before or after flowering depending on your need) to sprinkle cleansing or banishing or curse breaking (etc) water or to waft smoke. Make sure to wear gloves, of course.
- Use the dried or cooked leaves/tops to ’take the sting’ out of something or someone.
*This page is by no means exhaustive or conclusive in any information, and is intended for educational purposes only. Always consult and herbalist and/or your healthcare professional before trying /any/ herb that is new to you.
✨✨✨These herbal monographs take hours of research and quite a few dollars worth of books and resources. Please help support me by contributing to any of these avenues:
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More Posts in this Herbal Study Series:
Calendula
Marshmallow
Cannabis
Yarrow
Healing with the Herbs of Life - Lesley Tierra
Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health -Rosemary Gladstar
Peterson’s Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs, of Eastern and Central North America, Third Edition - Steven Foster and James A. Duke
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, expanded and revised edition - Scott Cunningham
The Witches’ Almanac 2018, Issue 37, The Magic of Plants - Article by Morven Westfield
Planting for the Future - Rosemary Gladstar and Pamela Hirsch
The Illustrated Herbiary - Maia Toll
The Healing Herbs, The Ultimate Guide to the Curative Powers of Nature’s Medicines - Michael Castleman
Alchemy of Herbs - Rosalee de la Forêt
The Herbal Medicine Maker’s Handbook, A Home Manual - James Green
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