Nettle, Stinging Nettle

Also nettles (singular and plural)

It is nettlesome to note that a venerable plant of extraordinary usefulness has been awarded no modifier other than “stinging.” But the word is apt in one aspect: The irritation resulting from a brush with nettles comes not from prickers but from a substance that contains formic acid, the stuff of stinging ants. Pamela Jones writes in Just Weeds: “It is simply impossible to ignore a plant that is capable of feeding, clothing, and healing the human body; a plant that has proved commercially successful . . . [and] been in continuous use for no fewer than 3000 years.”