SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
>6 
Our other species are U. ureus, L., a small weed of 
cultivated ground, and the curious alien said by 
Camden to have been brought to us by the Romans 
to chafe their bodies with in this Northern cold. 
This is the U. pilulifera, L., and, like the Roman 
snail, is said to be only found on the sites of Roman 
encampments—a statement to be received, like that 
of Camden, cumgrano satis. Prior tells us (p. l6l) that 
its name is derived from netel , German nessel , from 
the root form ne , to spin or sew, and that it meant 
that with which one sews. That thread was spun 
from it in Scotland we have the evidence quoted 
by Prior in illustration—Scotch cloth is only house¬ 
wifery of the nettle and Ellacombe quotes a letter 
of the poet Campbell: “ I have slept in nettle sheets, 
and dined off a nettle tablecloth, and I have heard 
my mother say that she thought nettle cloth more 
durable than any other linen.” It has also been 
used for paper and in rope manufacture, and has 
always been in request as a vegetable. Indeed, the 
young shoots are considered to be equal to spinach ; 
and in 1596 Coghan wrote : “ Cunning cookes at the 
spring of the year, when nettles first bud forth, can 
make good pottage with them.” They are much 
used still to pack garden fruit, and this is but the 
survival of an old custom, for nettles are supposed to 
preserve the “ bloom ” on the fruit. To nettles the 
insect world owes much. From the tortoiseshell 
butterfly ( Vanessa urticce) to the nettle gall-fly 
(Chironomus urticce ), many dozens of species find 
in it a home either in a larval or pupate condition, 
and it is a prey to more than fifty species of fungi, 
which attack it living or dead. It must not be for¬ 
gotten that the male and female flowers are on 
separate plants, and that the order is allied to that 
to which the hop and hemp belong. 
The candied root of a plant called eringoes is once 
