HEDGE NETTLE 



Stachys palustris L. 



MINT FAMILY 



So common is the Hedge Nettle throughout Canada that it 

 is no doubt known to most of our readers. Yet to know the name 

 of a plant is but a preliminary to acquaintance, so let us consider 

 this plant in some of its details of structure and habit. 



Although hardly a kindly way to begin we shall carefully 

 dig up a thrifty Hedge Nettle and examine its roots. At once 

 it will be noticed that the plant is a perennial with quantities 

 of long underground rootstocks. If our plant happens to grow 

 on the edge of cultivated land these runners will have been direct- 

 ed away from the congestion behind towards the space and free- 

 dom of the garden or field. The Hedge Nettle can therefore 

 travel toward opportunity. 



In A ut iiiiin some of these underground stems become thickened 

 until they look like slender white tubers, as indeed they are, 

 for the portion connecting them with the plant is thin and easily 

 broken, and, if these crisp tubers be taken and planted like 

 potatoes, they will make a ready growth. The Hedge Nettle 

 therefore carries life insurance. 



Leaving the root, we notice that the stems are square. Now, 

 square stems are said to have a mechanical advantage over round 

 stems where leaves are borne oppositely, as in this plant. For 

 it must not be thought that stems are a simple aggregation of 

 cells. On the contrary, they are wonderful and complicated 

 structures, each designed to carry the loads and stand the strains 

 incidental to the particular type of plant and its manner and 

 place of growth. Plants constructed reinforced columns and 

 girders with great efficiency and economy of material, lonn In-Tore 

 human engineers knew of such things, and the Hedge Nettle 

 is no mean exponent of Nature's mechanics. Of course the si cm 

 has other functions besides that of furnishing support. Through 

 special lines of cells in the stem the raw sap is carried upwards 

 to the leaves, and through other cells the enriched sap is returned 

 downwards to the roots, or carried to other growing parts of the 

 plant. 



Although space does not permit of it here, the reader may pass 

 on to the consideration of the leaves, flowers, and seeds, assured 

 that each detail of form and arrangement is of vital use and 

 meaning in the life of the Hedge Nettle. 



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