Nettles
Urtica dioica
URTICACEAE, The Nettle family
Thank you, dear friend, for the bag of nettles. The taste of spring, the taste of earth. I (carefully) sauteed them in butter, chopped them and served them over quinoa with parmesan.
Besides being delicious in soup, quiche and the like, nettles can be dried and made into tisane. It may help allergy sufferers. Other medicinal qualities include diuretic, treatment of muscle and joint pain, urinary tract infection and insect bites.
Nettles grow most places humans live, on nearly every continent. They like fertile, disturbed soil. I think of them as a lot-line and flood plain plant. Luckily where I grew up jewel-weed often grew nearby in the same habitat, and is a good antidote if you’re stung by the glass-like hairs in the leaves and stems.
