URTICACEAE (NETTLE FAMILY) 



87 



attached to their foot-stalk like fingers, all at the same base ; leaflets 

 three to six inches in length, a quarter-inch to an inch wide, pointed 

 at both ends, sharply toothed. Flowers dioecious, the sterile ones 

 in axillary, compound panicles, each with five hairy sepals and five 

 drooping stamens ; the fertile ones in small, erect, axillary spikes, 

 leafy-bracted, the calyx entire and clasping the ovary. Achene 

 compressed ovoid, about an eighth of an inch long. 



Means of control 



Prevent seed development by cutting or pulling while the plant 

 is in early bloom. 



TALL, OR SLENDER, NETTLE 

 Urtlca grdcilis, Ait. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 



Time of bloom: June to October. 



Seed-time: August until cut off by frost. 



Range: Nova Scotia to British Columbia, southward to the Caro- 



linas, Missouri, and Kansas. 

 Habitat : Rich soils ; barnyards, roadsides, 



waste places. 



Stem two to seven feet in height, slen- 

 der, erect, usually simple, but sometimes 

 with a few ascending branches, hollow 

 and ridged, sparingly set with stinging 

 hairs. Leaves opposite, slender, lance- 

 shaped, rounded at base, three to six 

 inches long, dark green above, paler below, 

 three to five-nerved, sharply saw-toothed, 

 also sparsely set with stinging hairs ; peti- 

 oles slender, more than half as long as the 

 breadth of the leaf. Flowers small, green- 

 ish, sometimes dioecious, but more often 

 on the same plant, the staminate ones near 

 the top and the fertile flowers in the axils 

 below, hanging in long, compound clus- FlG 48 . _ sl r ender Nettle 

 ters; sterile flowers have four sepals, each (Urtica gradlis). 



