URTICACEZ. 129 
old writers on herbs as a styptic, and seems to be useful in arresting bleeding of the 
nose. With this view, a small piece of lint moistened with the juice may be placed 
in the nostril. An infusion, known as “nettle tea,” is a common spring medicine in 
many rural districts, and is thought to purify the blood. Carden recommended sting- 
ing with nettles “to let out melancholy,” an advice also given by some other old 
writers. Bacon with reason says, “ We have no good opinion of it, lest through the 
venomous qualities of the nettle it may, with often use, breed disease of the skin.” 
SPECIES D—URTICA PILULIFERA. Linn. Hook. & Arn. 
Pratrs MCCLXXX., MCCLXXXI. 
Annual. Leaves opposite, ovate or lanceolate-ovate, truncate or 
rounded or subcordate at the base, acute, deeply inciso-serrate or more 
rarely entire, on petioles as long as the breadth of the lamina or 
longer. Flowers monecious. Male flowers in large glomerules, 
placed along at the extremity of the branches of lax panicles, generally 
equalling or exceeding the petioles of the leaves; female flowers in 
dense globular heads on solitary or branched peduncles, in pairs, 
shorter than the petioles of the leaves; branches of the male panicle 
ascending; peduncles of the female (except when they are terminated 
by a panicle of male flowers) spreading. Fruit-heads large, many- 
flowered, globular. Inner fruit sepals concave, much hooded. Plant 
with stinging hairs, 
Var. a, genuina. 
Prats MCCLXXX, 
Reich, Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCLITI. Fig. 1302. 
U. pilulifera, Linn. Spec. Pl. p. 1895. Reich. Ic. 1c. p. 10. Bab. olim. 
Leaves inciso-serrate. 
Var. 2, Dodartii. 
Prats MCCLXXXT. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et. Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCLII. Fig. 1303. 
U. Dodartii, Linn. Spec. Pl. p. 1895. Reich. Ic. lc. p. 10. Bab. olim. 
Leaves entire or nearly entire. 
By roadsides and in waste places near towns and villages in the east 
of England, but doubtfully native. The only places where I know it 
to be permanent in its stations, are by the side of the fish-houses, Lowe- 
stoft, Suffolk; Great Yarmouth, Norfolk; and perhaps at Copford, 
Essex, where both vars. a and 6 occur. It has occurred in, or been 
reported from, the counties of Cornwall, Hants, Kent, Surrey, Middle- 
sex, Cambridge, Stafford, Salop, Glamorgan, Anglesea, Lancaster, 
Durham, Northumberland; but I cannot discover that it has remained 
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