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Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Common
Name

Scientific
Name

Plant
Family

Garden
Location

Prime
Season
Wood Nettle
Laportea canadensis (L.) Weddell
Nettle
Woodland - Bog
Early Summer to Late Summer
Other names and notes
(Canadian Wood Nettle) Nettles have small greenish flowers in branching clusters (cymes) that form from the upper leaf axils. The clusters have a creamy color before flower opening. The stem covered with bristly, stinging hairs. Leaves are alternate (the only such nettle), long-stalked, widely oval with coarse teeth and hairy. Stem can reach 4 feet in height. Can be invasive. You can find it on the bog path and nearby is the Stinging Nettle which has opposite leaves and a different looking flower cluster. The genus name Laportea is named for Francois Louis de Laporte, Count of Castelnau, (1810-1880) a widely traveled Entomologist of the 19th century who traveled and collected in the United States between 1843 and 1847; and of course, canadensis is for "of Canada," where the plant was originally described.
Wood Nettle
Wood Nettle
Wood Nettle
Above: The loosely branching cymes
  
Above: The bristly stem hair
Wood Nettle
Wood Nettle
Above: Detail of the flowers in a cyme with stinging hair on the main branches in early August.
Above: The widely oval alternating leaf structure near the top of the plant.
Wood Nettle Flower Branch
Wood Nettle Seeds
Above: Left - the mature flowers in a cluster; right - seeds forming, all at the end of August.
 
 
Notes: This plant is indigenous to the Garden area. Eloise Butler catalogued it on Sept. 6, 1907. It is native to Minnesota and is found in most counties of the eastern 2/3rds of the state and scattered counties in the western 1/3. It is not as widely distributed in Minnesota or in the United States as the more common Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica L., nor does it have the wealth of practical and medicinal history as does the Stinging Nettle.  
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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.  
©2008-2012 Friends of the Wild Flower Garden, Inc. All photos are the property of The Friends of the Wild Flower Garden unless otherwise credited. "www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org" 071810