Fen Nettle, Stingless Nettle

I've been enjoying Fen Nettle as a more garden friendly replacement for common Stinging Nettle. Yes, it still CAN sting, but I've tested...Read More my plant out lots of times and find that overall the stinging hairs are softer than on stinging nettles meaning that it's much easier to avoid getting stung when handling fen nettles (the hairs do stiffen up on older parts of the stem and leaves).

Stinging qualities aside, what makes the fen nettle really suitable for garden conditions is that fact that it grows as a clumping perennial rather than a rampant runner so will not clonally spread itself all over your garden. Even by seed it can't spread unless you have both a male and female clone present, but the only clone I have appears to be male anyway.

Urtica galeopsifolia it is perennial to about 2m tall. Its leaves and tops of shoots have not stinging hairs, but lower parts of stems ha...Read Moreve them (and burn when touched as stinging nettle - U. dioica). This species has also very long and narrow, pubescent leaves - in comparison to wider and shorter leaves of stinging nettle. It is also later in flowers - in mid July (U. dioica in mid June, so one month earlier) and has first inflorescences on 13-22 node since base (U. dioica on 7-14 node). Fen Nettle does not grow on synanthropic sites - it grows only on natural communities - on winter-flooded wet natural thickets, edges of rivers, wet woodlands etc. U. galeopsifolia is diploid. U. dioica is tetraploid and it is probably hybrid of U. galeopsifolia and other nettle species. It is unknown if it is rare species or common one in Poland. It grows in western, central and eastern Europe, the most often on the south of latitude 60' N.