436 
URT1CACEJE. (NETTLE FAMILY.) 
lary panicles, racemes, spikes, or heads, greenish. Bark yielding 
strong fibres like hemp. (The classical name, from uro , to burn.) 
§ 1. Urtica proper. — Sterile calyx 4-parted ; the fertile of 4 very une¬ 
qual sepals, the 2 outer small , the inner foliaceous: stigma pencil- 
tufted. : leaves opposite. 
1- IT. gracilis, Ait. (Tall Wild Nettle.) Sparingly bris- 
Hy » ^all and slender) leaves ovate-lanceolate , pointed, serrate, 3-5- 
nerved from the rounded or scarcely heart-shaped base, smoothish , the 
elongated petioles bristly ; flower-clusters in slender and loosely pani- 
cled branched spikes. 1J. (U. procera, Willd.) —Fence-rows and 
moist ground, common, especially northward. July. —Plant 29-6° 
high, with slenderer and longer-petioled leaves than the next, not 
downy, and with scarcely any stinging hairs except on the petioles 
and sparingly on the principal veins. 
2. U. dioiea, L. (Great Stinging Nettle.) Very bristly 
and stinging ; leaves ovate , heart-shaped , pointed, very deeply serrate , 
downy underneath as well as the upper part of the stem; flower-clus¬ 
ters in panicled much-branched spikes. }J. —Waste places, about hous¬ 
es, &c.; introduced. June-Aug. — Plant 2°-3° high, copiously 
beset with stinging bristles. — Like the last mono-dioecious. 
3. IT. iirens, L. (Small Stinging Nettle.) Leaves ellipti- 
tical or ovate , coarsely and deeply serrate with spreading teeth flow¬ 
er-clusters nearly simple , 2 in each axil , shorter than petioles. (J) — 
Introduced from Europe, and sparingly naturalized eastward. July.— 
Plant - 12' high ; the leaves F-2 f long, including the slender peti¬ 
oles, sparsely beset with stinging bristles. 
§ 2. Laportea, Gaud. — Sterile calyx 5-par ted ; the fertile of 2 equal 
sepals : stigma elongated , awl-shaped , persistent on the rounded and 
flat very oblique achenium: leaves alternate. 
C. Canadensis, L. (Canada or Large-leaved Net¬ 
tle.) Leaves ovate, obtusely serrate, pointed ; flowers in long and 
oose divaricately branched panicles, the lower sterile, the upper fer 
tile. 1J. (U. divarickta, L.) — Rich moist woods, along streams, com 
mon. Aug. Stem 2°—5° high, branching. Leaves strongly feather 
veined, often 6* long, long-petioled. Commonly very stinging; some 
times the leaves scarcely so, and the stem perfectly naked. Acheni 
um very much larger than the sepals, at length bent partly downward 
on the wing-margined pedicel, so oblique that the stigma soon appears 
on the middle of one side and the seed is transverse. 
Lindl. Stingless Nettle. 
Flowers moncecious; the two kinds often intermixed in the same 
panicle, bracted ; the sterile of 3 — 4 sepals and stamens ; the fer¬ 
tile with 3 more or less unequal sepals or divisions and an incurv- 
