#stinging nettle

Nettle Caterpillar Moth (Parasa lepida), family Limacodidae, Sinharaja Forest Edge, Deniyaya, Sri Lanka.

Moths in this genus have a caterpillar with stinging spines. The stings are VERY painful.

Be Persistent

This is stinging nettle, a common name that applies to multiple edible species or subspecies. Where I am, there's Urtica diocia which was introduced from Europe, and U. gracilis, which is native to this area. This is probably diocia, but I'm not 100% sure. They are very similar, and up until 2016 or so were thought to be the same species. Both species are very common perennials that spread by runner and by seed. They like forest edges and small clearings in forests, usually in or near moist areas.

When I forage, I look for large patches with a good density of plants. That way it's easy to pick a reasonable amount without worry about over harvesting. In the above picture you can see the pale, white-ish stalks from last year. These can be an easy way to spot a good patch from a fair distance. At least when I'm wearing my glasses. It's also interesting to note that in addition to being used as food and medicine, the fibers from those stalks have been used to make textiles.

When I forage, I like to take the tips like above for a few reasons. They're the most tender, if you bend them at the right spot they snap off cleanly, and it leaves the majority of the stalk to regenerate and keep growing.

Hard to see in this picture, but at the base of each leaf is an axillary bud, which will start growing once the top is removed.

Other foragers harvest differently, using scissors to snip the stalk about half way down. We all have our preferences and reasons. Pretty much everyone agrees that you should stop harvesting once they start flowering, because they develop gritty little bits of calcium carbonate. Unpleasant to eat.

While I'm foraging, I'm looking carefully at each plant- I personally avoid the ones with bird poo, insects, or other unidentified stuff going on. I also tend to do a little vegetation management of invasive species nearby, most commonly Himalayan blackberry and English ivy. I also pick up any trash I see.

It's very satisfying to go back to the same patch and over the course of a few years see the Himalayan blackberry shrinking while the thimbleberry and blackcap raspberry spread.

I like to use stinging nettle in soup, dry it for tea and broth, cook it like spinach, and infuse vinegar with it. I've made a pesto-like thing in the past, and I think I'll try again this year, but instead of steaming the leaves like I was taught, I'm going to dry them and then mix with basil. Heat deactivates the sting, so make sure you don't under cook it.

Dark bush cricket nymphs on nettle.

(Pholidoptera griseoaptera, nymphs, on Urtica dioica)