The Description.

            1. The stalks of the first be now and then half a yard high, round, and hollow within; the leaves are broad, sharp pointed, cut round about like a saw, they be rough on both sides, and covered with a stinging down, which with a light touch only causeth a great burning, and raiseth hard knots in the skin like blisters, and sometimes maketh it red. The seed cometh from the roots of the leaves in round pellets bigger than peas; it is slippery, glittering like linseed, but yet lesser and rounder. The root is set with strings.

            2. The second Nettle being our common Nettle is like to the former in leaves and stalks, but yet now and then higher and more full of branches: it is also covered with a down that stingeth and burneth as well as the other: the seed hereof is small, and groweth not in round bullets, but on long slender strings, as it were in clusters, as those of the Female Mercury, which grow along the stalks and branches above the leaves, very many. The root is full of strings; of colour something yellow, and creepeth all about. This hath the stalks and roots sometimes a little reddish, whence Tabernamontanus and our author gave another figure thereof by the name of Urtica rubra, Red Nettle.

Fig. 1051. Small Nettle (1)

            3. The third is like to the second in stalks, leaves and seed, that groweth by clusters, but lesser, and commonly more full of branches of a light green, more burning and stinging; the root is small and not without strings.

The Place.

            Roman Nettles grow in untilled places, and the first in thick woods, and is a stranger in England, notwithstanding it groweth in my garden.

            The second is more common, and groweth of itself near unto hedges, bushes, brambles, and old walls almost everywhere.

            The third also cometh up in the same places, which notwithstanding groweth in gardens and moist arable grounds.

The Time.

            They all flourish in summer: the second suffereth the winter's cold: the seed is ripe, and may be gathered in July and August.

The Names.

            It is called in Latin, Urtica, ab urendo, of his burning and stinging quality; whereupon Macer saith,

— nec immerito nomen sumpsisse videtur
Tacta quod exurat digitos urtica tenentis.
Neither without desert his name he seems to get,
As that which quickly burns the fingers touching it.

In High Dutch, Nessel: in Italian, Ortica: in Spanish, Hortiga: in French, Ortie: in English, Nettle. The first is called in Low Dutch Roomsche Netelen, that is, Romana Urtica, or Roman Nettle: and likewise in High Dutch Walsche Nesselen, that is, Italica urtica, Italian Nettle, because it is rare, and groweth but in few places, and the seed is sent from other countries, and sown in gardens for his virtues: it is also called of divers Urtica mas: and of Dioscorides, Urtica sylvestris, or wild Nettle, which he saith is more rough, with broader and longer leaves, and with the seed of Flax, but lesser, Pliny maketh the wild Nettle the male, and in his 21st book, chap. 15, saith that it is milder and gentler: it is called in English Roman Nettle, Greek Nettle, Male Nettle. The second is called Urtica fœmina, and oftentimes Urtica maior, tlat it may differ from the third Nettle: in English, Female Nettle, Great Nettle or common Nettle. The third is named in High Dutch Heyter Nessel: in the Brabanters speech, Heijte Netelen, so called of the stinging quality: in English, Small Nettle, Small Burning Nettle: but whether this be that or no which Pliny calleth Cania, or rather the first, let the students consider. There is in the wild Nettle a more stinging quality, which saith he, is called Cania, with a stalk more stinging, having nicked leaves.

The Temperature.

            Nettle is of temperature dry, a little hot, scarce in the first degree: it is of thin and subtle parts; for it doth not therefore burn and sting by reason it is extreme hot, but because the down of it is stiff and hard, piercing like fine little prickles or stings, and entering into the skin: for if it be withered or boiled it stingeth not at all, by reason that the stiffness of the down is fallen away.

The Virtues.

            A. Being eaten, as Dioscorides saith, boiled with Periwinkles, it maketh the body soluble, doing it by a kind of cleansing quality: it also provoketh urine, and expelleth stones out of the kidneys: being boiled with Barley cream it bringeth up tough humours that stick in the chest, as it is thought.

            B. Being stamped, and the juice put up into the nostrils, it stoppeth the bleeding of the nose: the juice is good against the inflammation of the uvula.

            C. The seed of Nettle stirreth up lust especially drunk with cuit: for (as Galen saith) it hath in it a certain windiness.

            D. It concocteth and draweth out of the chest raw humours.

            E. It is good for them that cannot breathe unless they hold their necks upright, and for those that have the pleurisy, and for such as be sick of the inflammation of the lungs if it be taken in a lohoch or licking medicine, and also against the troublesome cough that children have, called the chincough.

            F. Nicander affirmeth that it is a remedy against the venomous quality of Hemlock, Mushrooms, and quicksilver.

            G. And Apollidoris saith that it is a counterpoison for Henbane, serpents, and scorpions.

            H. As Pliny witnesseth, the same author writeth, that the oil of it takes away the stinging which the Nettle itself maketh.

            I. The same grossly pounded, and drunk in white wine, is a most singular medicine against the stone either in the bladder or in the reins, as hath been often proved, to the great ease and comfort of those that have been grievously tormented with that malady.

            J. It expelleth gravel, and causeth to make water.

            L. The leaves of any kind of Nettle, or the seeds, do work the like effect, but not with that good speed and so assuredly as the Roman Nettle.