The Urticaceae are a family, the nettle family, of flowering plants. The family name comes from the genus Urtica. The Urticaceae include a number of well-known and useful plants, including nettles in the genus Urtica, ramie, māmaki, and ajlai.
Urtica dioica, often known as common nettle, stinging nettle or nettle leaf, or just a nettle or stinger, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Urticaceae. Originally native to Europe, much of temperate Asia and western North Africa, it is now found worldwide, including New Zealand and North America. The species is divided into six subspecies, five of which have many hollow stinging hairs called trichomes on the leaves and stems, which act like hypodermic needles, injecting histamine and other chemicals that produce a stinging sensation upon contact. The plant has a long history of use as a source for traditional medicine, food, tea, and textile raw material in ancient societies such as the Saxons.
Urtica is a genus of flowering plants in the family Urticaceae. Many species have stinging hairs and may be called nettles or stinging nettles, although the latter name applies particularly to Urtica dioica.
Boehmeria is a genus of 47 species of flowering plants in the nettle family Urticaceae. Of the species, 33 are indigenous to the Old World and 14 to the New World; no species is indigenous to both the Old and New Worlds. The species include herbaceous perennials, shrubs and small trees. Although related to the similar-looking species of the stinging nettles of genus Urtica, species of Boehmeria do not have stinging hairs. Because of the similarity in appearance, some species are commonly called "false nettles".
Salvadora persica is a small evergreen tree native to the Middle East, Africa, and India. Its sticks are used as a natural toothbrush called miswak and are mentioned by the World Health Organization for oral hygiene use.
Urtica ferox, commonly known as tree nettle and in Māori: ongaonga, taraonga, taraongaonga, оr okaoka, is a species of nettle endemic to New Zealand. Unlike the other species in the genus Urtica found in New Zealand, all of which are herbaceous, ongaonga is a large woody shrub that can grow to a height of 3 m (9.8 ft), with the base of the stem reaching 12 cm (4.7 in) in thickness. It has large spines that can result in a painful sting that lasts several days.
Dendrocnide is a genus of 37 species of shrubs to large trees in the nettle family Urticaceae. They have a wide distribution across Southeast Asia, North East India, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
Quercus variabilis, the Chinese cork oak, is a species of oak in the section Quercus sect. Cerris, native to a wide area of eastern Asia in southern, central, and eastern China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.
Dendrocnide moroides, also known as the stinging brush, mulberry-leaved stinger, gympie, gympie stinger, stinger, the suicide plant, or moonlighter, is a plant in the nettle family Urticaceae common to rainforest areas in the north-east of Australia. Gympie-gympie, its common and original name, comes from the language of the indigenous Gubbi Gubbi people of South Queensland. It is also found in Indonesia. It has stinging hairs which cover the whole plant and delivers a potent neurotoxin when touched, by the small bulb that is found on the tip of the stinging hairs being broken off and penetrating the skin to inject the toxin. It is the most toxic of the Australian species of stinging trees. The fruit is edible to humans if the stinging hairs that cover it are removed.
Urera is a genus of flowering plants in the nettle family, Urticaceae. It has a pantropical distribution.
Dendrocnide is a genus of 37 species of shrubs to large trees in the nettle family Urticaceae, known as stinging trees. Dendrocnide excelsa, also called Australian nettle tree, fibrewood, gimpi gimpi, giant stinging tree, gympie, is a rainforest tree of eastern Australia. It occurs from Tathra, New South Wales to Imbil in southeastern Queensland, and is very common at Dorrigo National Park and other rainforest walks in eastern Australia. The habitat of the giant stinging tree is subtropical, warm temperate or littoral rainforest, particularly in disturbed areas, previously flattened by storms or cyclones.
Dendrocnide photinophylla, the shining-leaved stinging tree, is a rainforest tree of eastern Australia. It occurs from near the Colo River northwest of Sydney to Cooktown in tropical Queensland. A versatile species, it occurs in many different rainforest types. The specific epithet photinophylla translates to shining leaf. The generic name translates to stinging tree.
Dendrocnide peltata, commonly known simply as the stinging tree or jelaton, is a large tree in the nettle family Urticaceae. With the other species of the genus Dendrocnide, it is known for the stinging hairs which cover the whole plant and cause severe pain when touched. The specific epithet comes from the Latin pelta, referring to the peltate leaves.
Tabernaemontana ventricosa is a plant in the family Apocynaceae. It grows as a shrub or small tree up to 15 metres (50 ft) tall, with a trunk diameter of up to 30 centimetres (12 in) and has white sap. Leaves are paired and crowded near the ends of branches. They are oblong, leathery and a glossy dark green. Flowers are fragrant with white, somewhat twisted lobes, often with a pale yellow center and are set in small clusters at the ends of branches. The fruit is dark green, set in spreading pairs of ellipsoids or oval, beaked pods, up to 10 centimetres (4 in) in diameter. Its habitat is forests from sea level to 1,850 metres (6,000 ft) altitude. In Zimbabwe, it is usually found as part of the understorey of evergreen forests. Local medicinal uses include the treatment of wounds, fever and hypertension. The plant is native to tropical central and southern Africa.
A stinging plant or a plant with stinging hairs is a plant with hairs (trichomes) on its leaves or stems that are capable of injecting substances that cause pain or irritation.
Urera trinervis (Hochst.) Friis & Immelman is a softly woody dioecious liane, sometimes epiphytic, climbing to 20 m, often to the canopy and hanging in festoons. It is one of some 44 species of Urera belonging to the nettle family Urticaceae. It is known in English as the tree climbing-nettle or climbing nettle.
Hakea lissosperma, commonly known as needle bush and mountain needlewood, is a species of Hakea native to parts of south eastern Australia.
Myroxylon balsamum, Santos mahogany, is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae. It is native to tropical forests from Southern Mexico through the Amazon regions of Peru and Brazil at elevations of 200–690 meters. Plants are found in growing in well drained soil in evergreen humid forest.
Cecropia pachystachya, commonly known as Ambay pumpwood, is a species of tree in the family Urticaceae. It is native to Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil where it grows near the edges of moist forests.
Aporosa octandra is a species of plant in the family Phyllanthaceae found from Queensland and New Guinea to Indonesia, Zhōngguó/China and India. It is a highly variable plant with 4 named varieties. Its wood is used in construction and to make implements, its fruit is edible. The Karbi people of Assam use the plant for dyeing, textile colours have quite some significance in their culture.
