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 dicecious, 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. 
Ne 
TALL, OR SLENDER, NETTLE 
Urtica gracilis, 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 dicecious, 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- y,, 43 — slender Nettle 
ters; sterile flowers have four sepals, each = (Urtica gracilis). x }. 
