URTICA 
IOI 
Roadsides and waste places, near towns and villages, chiefly in eastern England, very rare and 
perhaps extinct ; elsewhere it is adventitious. 
Parkinson (Joe. cit.), in 1633, states that U. pilulifera “hath beene found naturally growing time out of minde, both 
at the town of Lidde by Romney, and in the streets of the towne of Romney, in Kent ” ; and he refers to the 
tradition that seeds of the plant were brought here by the soldiers of Julius Caesar, who had been “told before they 
came from home that the climate of Brittaine was so extreame cold that it was not to be endured without some friction 
or rubbing to warme their bloods and to stirre up natural heat, from which time it is thought it hath continued there, 
rising yearly of its own sowing.” The plant was also plentiful on the coast of Suffolk (near Aldeburgh) and Norfolk 
(near Yarmouth) in the time of Ray (Syn. 29 (1690)), but is now very rare or extinct there. 
Linnaeus, in his Observ. (vide Mantissa 495 (1767)) remarks that “varietates fere sunt U. pilulifera , balearica , dodarti , 
constantes tamen; qui vult has conjungere potest”; and Smith (Eng. FI. iv, 134 (1828)) states that U. balearica L. Syst. 
Nat. ed. 10, 1265 (1759) is merely a variety of U. pilulifera with cordate leaves (cf. Syme’s figure, loc. cit.). 
South-western France, southern Europe ; northern Africa ; Asia Minor and western Asia. 
Tribe 2. PA RIE TARIEA E 
Parietarieae Weddel in Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris ix, 502 (1856); Engler in Engler und Prantl 
Pflanzenfam. iii, pt. i, 103 et 115 (1894). 
For characters, see page 98. Only British genus : — Pari'etaria (see page 102). 
Map 13. Distribution of Pari'etaria officinalis in the British Isles 
