Nettle.
Urtica.
Also see: Nettle - Roman Nettle.
A plant too common to need much description. It is three feet high; the stalks are angulated and rough; the leaves are large, and of a beautiful shape, regularly from a broad base diminishing to a sharp point, and nicely serrated round the edges; the colour of these and of the stalks is a dusky green, and they are both covered with a kind of prickles, which easily make their way into the skin, and have at their base, a hollow bag of sharp juice, which gets into the wound, occasioning that swelling, inflammation, and pain that follows. The naked eye may distinguish these bags at the bottom of the prickles on the stalk of a full grown nettle, but a microscope shews them all over. The flowers of the nettle, are yellowish, little, and inconsiderable, the seeds are small, and round, the root is long and creeping.
The juice of the nettle is good against overflowings of the menses. The root is to be given in infusion, and it works powerfully by urine, and is excellent against the jaundice.
