Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


Home	About NPWRC	Our Science	Staff	Employment	Contacts	Common Questions	About the Site

Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

Urticaceae - The Nettle Family

Monoecious or dioecious, annual or perennial herbs with watery juice, sometimes beset with stinging hairs, the leaves opposite (in those included here), simple, petiolate, usually stipulate. Flowers small, greenish and inconspicuous, borne in simple or branched axillary clusters, usually imperfect; perianth consisting of a 3- to 4-parted or toothed calyx, that of the male flowers usually more deeply parted; stamens equal in number to the calyx lobes and opposite them, a vestigial pistil sometimes present; female flowers containing a unicarpellary pistil and sometimes with scalelike rudiments of stamens, style 1, ovary superior, 1-celled, ovule 1. Fruit an achene, often enclosed by an accrescent calyx.

Lead	Characteristic	Go To
1	Plants 1-5 dm tall, glabrous or nearly so, not armed with stinging hairs.	Genus Pilea
1	Plants 8-20 dm tall, armed with stiff stinging hairs.	Genus (Urtica)

10. Urticaceae, the Nettle Family

1. Pilea Lindl. -- Clearweed

1. Pilea fontana (Lunell) Rydb.

2. Pilea pumila (L.) A. Gray

2. Urtica L. -- Nettle

1. Urtica dioica L. -- Stinging nettle

Previous Section -- Ranunculaceae - The Buttercup Family
Return to Contents
Next Section -- Betulaceae - The Birch Family

Accessibility FOIA Privacy Policies and Notices

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/vascplnt/famurtic.htm
Page Contact Information: Webmaster
Page Last Modified: Saturday, 02-Feb-2013 06:37:42 EST
Menlo Park, CA [caww54]