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Stinging Nettles are not popular plants, I have received many stings from them over the years. Despite their stings, some lovely butterflies and moths choose them as their main food plants, so even Stinging Nettles give us something very special.
I have for a long time known that the Scrub Nettle Urtica incisa is the food plant for the caterpillars of the Australian Admiral butterfly Vanessa itea. This means that almost every time I pass any nettles, I give them a quick once over for caterpillars.
I have done this for some years without success, but on 31st August 2006, I did find a lot of caterpillars feeding on the nettles in Morwell National Park in Victoria, Australia. I knew at once that they were not Australian Admirals, but I had no idea what they were (or would become). Here is the very hairy caterpillar that I found.
I decided to see if I could rear the caterpillars and thus find out which moth they would become, so I took two caterpillars home and put them in a jar with several stems of stinging nettles.
The caterpillars fed avidly on the nettles, but the nettles of course wilted fairly quickly in the jar and I had to collect more nettles after 3 days.
I kept collecting stinging nettles every 3 days for most of a month. Not a simple matter and very few changes of nettle occurred without my getting a few stings along the way.
The caterpillars grew and changed in appearance, so that on 18th September, after 18 days, they looked like this.
As they grew nearer to pupating, I had to make a guess as to where they would like to pupate. I had a suspicion that they were a Tiger Moth of the genus Spilosoma and that led me to suspect that they would pupate among leaf and bark litter on the ground. I therefore provided a layer of dead leaves, bark and twigs in the bottom of the jar.
At about the end of September they completed their caterpillar phase and both weaved a cocoon, incorporating the hairs from their final caterpillar stage and in this cocoon became a chrysalis or pupa.
Here is one of the cocoons with all the bark and leaves incorporated into it.
At this stage I removed the remnants of the nettles and placed three or four twigs in the jar, so that if a moth emerged it would have something to perch on. I then kept the jar in a spot where I would look at it every day so that I would not miss the emergence of the moth.
It was not until 15th February, that I was delighted to find that one of the moths had emerged, 5½ months after I first found the caterpillar, and what a beautiful moth it proved to be.
I was right in guessing it to be a Tiger Moth in the genus Spilosoma. It proves to be the Black and White Tiger Moth Spilosoma glatignyi, but all the references I could find, listed a lot of food plants for this moth, but none mentioned stinging nettles.
In Morwell National Park, the scrub nettle is an important food plant for this moth, after seeing the caterpillars once, I found them on almost every patch of nettles in the park and there are plenty of them as the Friends of the Park well know (some from bitter experience).
While I was rearing these caterpillars, I continued to look at every patch of nettles, seeing a lot more of the same caterpillars, but on 19th September, I finally found the caterpillar I had been searching for, an Australian Admiral butterfly's caterpillar.
It looked a pretty well developed caterpillar and it was on teh stem of a nettle, very near the top. I thought I would put it in the jar with the other caterpillars (to share their nettles), but I kept it in a plastic bag over night, so that I could take some more pictures, before adding it to the jar. When I went to get it the next morning, I found the caterpillar curled back on itself and firmly attached to the plastic bag. I thought it had started to pupate, so I left it in the plastic bag and by the evening when I next looked it had formed itself into this lovely chrysalis, which was firmly attached to the plastic bag.
In order to support the chrysalis, I had to cut a piece out of the plastic bag and wrap it round a piece of garden stake, using sticky tape to fix it in place.
I kept the stick with the chrysalis on it free standing in our family room and I did not have to wait 5½ months for this one to emerge. After only 2 weeks Fay told me there was a butterfly flying around the room and sure enough, the chrysalis was empty and I found a beautiful Australian Admiral butterfly perched on the curtain. I didn't try and photograph the butterfly, I simply let it free in the garden, but here is a picture of an Australian Admiral that I took recently.
So next time you collect a few stings from the nettles, remember that there is a beautiful moth and a beautiful butterfly depending on them for food and so they make a very positive contribution to our park.
It is not just in Australia, that stinging nettles are hosts to beautiful butterflies. In Europe and America, the Red Admiral butterfly Vanessa atalanta also chooses stinging nettles as its favourite plant for rearing its caterpillars.
In New Zealand too, the New Zealand Red Admiral Vanessa gonerilla chooses one of the fiercest of nettles, the Tree Nettle Urtica ferox for its caterpillars.
There is a good side to Stinging Nettles wherever they are found!
About Kennedy Harris
I garden in Australia. I have a great love for all of nature, and have been photographing plants and animals for many years
Posted by gessiegail (from Taft, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 9:12 PM:
Knowing nothing about these creatures, I found myself totally engrossed in your article. This is so fascinating to learn. Please write again for us!
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 11:02 PM:
gessiegail,
Thanks for your appreciation
Kennedy
...
Posted by gessiegail (from Taft, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 11:20 PM:
I loved it and will be watching for another from you!
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 17, 2007 at 12:36 AM:
I have one more article queued up for display and it will appear on 26th November, but there may be a lull after that!
...
Posted by gessiegail (from Taft, TX) on November 17, 2007 at 12:38 AM:
Yeah! Thanks for telling me or I might have missed it with all the kids and grandkids coming in for the weekend.
...
Posted by Annepaola (from Manahawkin, NJ) on November 19, 2007 at 9:30 AM:
I am working to create two butterfly gardens next spring. Are stinging nettles something that can be started from seed? And is seed available?
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 19, 2007 at 5:06 PM:
I have never looked for seed on stinging nettles, but I think it must be produced in some quantity, although there would be a risk (of stings) involved in collecting seed.
I don't think I should offer to look for seed of our Australian species and risk adding another troublesome weed to the US.
I think if I were wanting to grow stinging nettles, I would mark down a patch and wait for the main growing stems to die down in the Autumn and then then dig up a small piece of the perennial rootstock. I think they would transplant pretty easily, but you would want to grow them in an out of the way moist corner as it is very easy to get stung by them.
Perhaps you need to grow the antidote nearby. Various species of Rumex, the Dock Leaves, are the traditional antidote to the stinging nettle stings. You pick large leaves from the dock and crush them by rubbing them over the stings.
Kennedy
...
Subject: Stinging Nettles in another hemisphere
Posted by JaxFlaGardener (from Jacksonville, FL) on November 16, 2007 at 3:53 PM:
I very much enjoyed your article and will forward it to some friends that love the labor of assisting butterflies and moths in their development. I've done it a few times, and enjoy the fascination of watching the process, which you convey so well in your article, but usually feel I'm not a good midwife for this process because it does require a constant foraging for leaves of the host plant and I seldom find myself able to focus for the time required.
In my neck of the woods, a Stinging Nettle is a different plant, the Cnidoscolus stimulosus, [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]). When I first saw your article title, I thought it might be about this plant. Though my friends think I'm nuts, I do let some of the C. stimulosus grow in my garden (I've even transplanted a few to my preferred locations for them, usually with painful results!). They have one of the truest white flowers I've encountered, at least to my eye. Not even a twinge of green or pink that usually occurs in white flowers.
As it turns out, a relative of the Cnidoscolus stimulosus, which we call the "Spinach Tree" (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]) doesn't seem to be a host plant for caterpillars, but is a favored nectar source for many butterflies in our area.
Thanks for your dedicated efforts in helping the moths and butterflies and for reporting your notes and observations. It was very enjoyable!
Jeremy
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 4:28 PM:
Thanks Jeremy,
The stinging nettles I mainly wrote about are Australian, but the genus Urtica is world-wide and the main European stinging nettle Urtica dioica, which feeds Red Admiral butterflies, is also found in North America (as a different subspecies) and according to Wikipedia [HYPERLINK@en.wikipedia.org]
Quoted:
Stinging nettles are abundant in northern Europe and much of Asia, usually found in the countryside. It is less gregarious in southern Europe and north Africa, where it is restricted by its need for moist soil. In North America it is widely distributed in Canada and the United States, where it is found in every province and state except for Hawaii and also can be found in northernmost Mexico. In North America the stinging nettle is far less common than in northern Europe. The European subspecies has been introduced into North America as well as South America.
so although perhaps not common in Florida, they may be present,
Kennedy
...
Posted by gardenglory (from Gainesville, FL) on November 16, 2007 at 9:10 PM:
I have them, nice white flower, I only leave them because I usually cant find anything to grab them with, they do sting. or feel like a thousand needles. Interesting that there are different kinds.
...
Posted by GrandmaMary (from Smith's Parish
(Bermuda)) on November 19, 2007 at 10:37 AM:
I found the article on stinging nettles very interesting and informative. In Bermuda we have them, but I have no idea which variety. Some Bermudians make a tea with the leaves which is supposed to have medicinal benefits.
...
Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on November 19, 2007 at 1:10 PM:
Kennedy...absolutely fascinating! Your patience resulted in not only a wonderful experience for yourself, but also for all of us with whom you shared it. Well Done!!
...
Subject: Smart butterflies
Posted by grampapa (from Wheatfield, NY) on November 16, 2007 at 1:56 PM:
Kennedy, thanks for a super article! It's always interesting to see how nature sets up defenses for it's creatures. These b'flies have a unique way of protecting their cats.
...
Posted by KyWoods (from Melbourne, KY) on November 16, 2007 at 3:53 PM:
How exciting that you had a butterfly "hatch" right in your own living room! Thanks for a fun, interesting article.
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 4:30 PM:
Thankyou both for your appreciation. It was fun rearing these critters through to adulthood,
Kennedy
...
Subject: Humble plants have a purpose.
Posted by frostweed (from Arlington, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 9:20 AM:
It is wonderful that you chose to highlight this plant and the insects that depend on it.
Sometimes unless a plant is beautiful people don't see the good that it was created for.
Josephine.
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 10:41 AM:
Most excellent article Ken!
I love how you put it all together! I am on the same trail with the Vanessas here that use the Nettles. Apparently there are lots of this plant on our land in the Big Thicket, and I will be looking for some good specimens. The article was especially encouraging to me because I have been writing on similar subjects and doing some extensive research. Sometimes the technical gets all tangled up with my passion for these little fellas...
Now I don't feel like such a lone ranger with this sort of subject matter..
Thank you!
debnes
...
Posted by tabasco (from Cincinnati (Anderson, OH) on November 16, 2007 at 11:26 AM:
Great article! Hope you have more in store for us, Ken!
No, you're not alone in your interest of nettles, deb. I was trying to learn more about them too, so I was so happy to see Kennedyh's good article on them!
Now, I'm wondering how they can best be used in the butterfly garden...not sure how to work that out...
Any ideas?
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 12:30 PM:
Judy, (In my case) I'm not exactly sure yet, but I'm thinking I can find a corner somewhere. A spot where there isn't any foot traffic. I wouldn't want it spreading around too much, so I would set some sort of barrier for it. Other than that, I will have to get back to you on it when I embark on the whole project.
Ken surely has some better answers to your question, though I believe he said those patches are out and off of his land in "Morwell National Park in Victoria, Australia", where he checks on them frequently.
In any case, care must be taken when considering how to plant it, especially handling it, I'm using gloves for sure). Maybe in a pot or two would be a kinder way, as in 100 years who knows what it will do...
We have been using the "wet" kind of floral foam for cuttings with great success. It helps keep them moist, and no worries about drowning the cats.
...
Posted by tabasco (from Cincinnati (Anderson, OH) on November 16, 2007 at 1:12 PM:
Well, I didn't check plant files before I posted above and I guess I should have.
Before kennedyh's article 'who knew' about the nettle?! At least I didn't know anything but others did, I guess...
Baa wrote up a wonderful Plant Files post on the the common nettle listing all kinds of attributes for it-- tea, cheeses, fabric dye, to name just a few. Further along on the thread, someone else suggests its use placed under windows as a burglar deterrent! So I have some good ideas for use/placement in the yard! [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
I always get thistle and nettle mixed up, so after reading Plant Files I also think that I got nettle seed included in a load of compost I had delivered a couple of years ago. It was a head ache to have around and get rid of, but I got lots of painted ladies that year...
Exactly what butterflies like the nettles? (Vanessas are painted ladies, right?)
Thanks, again, kennedyh, for the great article...
...
Posted by frostweed (from Arlington, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 3:22 PM:
There is a False Nettle that is very common and it doesn't sting;
You can probably find it growing in your neighborhood here in Texas, and many other states too.
Josephine.
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 4:42 PM:
Yes Josephine, probably so... Wildflower site is great, a lot of great information there now. They did leave out the Painted Lady though. (Vanessa cardui).
I only posted the site there for the other Nettle, because I was perusing for the kind that might be native to Ohio...
If the False Nettle is just as good, I would prefer it. My little chihuauah might get it on him, because he goes all over the back yard.
Another good host looks like Texas Thistle, (Judy I can see why it is easy to mix those up). Painted Lady has over 100 plants they will use for oviposition.
debnes
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 4:59 PM:
Thank you all for your appreciation. I really enjoyed (despite a few nettle stings), rearing these caterpillars through to adulthood.
As to growing them in the garden, I can't help at all, although the whole process of rearing them and writing the article have got me thinking that perhaps I should find a corner in the garden for a few nettles. As debnes says, the nettles that I mainly see are in Morwell National Park near here, although they are very common in moist forest throughout the region. I have none in my garden, although I do sometimes get visited by the Australian Admiral butterflies.
The butterfly that does rear its young successfully in our garden is another interesting one. The Imperial White butterfly Delias harpalyce: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com] rears its caterpillars only on Mistletoe, particularly the Drooping Mistletoe Amyema pendula: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
When we had our house built, this was a bare paddock, and mistletoe isn't something you can choose to plant in the garden. We did plant a lot of trees and shrubs and quite early on, a Mistletoe Bird must have brought a mistletoe seed to a Black Wattle we had grown. We now have Mistletoe growing on several trees, mainly Acacias in the garden and more than once the Imperial Whites have reared their young on our mistletoes and I have been able to photograph them at all stages from egg through to butterfly, although I still wait for a chance to photograph a male Imperial White with its wings spread!
frostweed, interesting to learn that your False Nettle is another host plant for the Red Admiral, although I see it is in the same Urticaceae family.
We have a stingless nettle here, the Shade Nettle Australina pusilla: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
also in the urticaceae, but I have no information as to whether the butterflies use them as an alternative host plant. They are actually quite pleasant to eat as a salad.
Kennedy
...
Posted by tabasco (from Cincinnati (Anderson, OH) on November 16, 2007 at 5:44 PM:
Interesting how you got the mistletoe to grow in your garden, Kennedy. And, of course, the Imperial White. Very nice photos, too.
The Great Purple Hairstreak, a rather rare butterfly here in Ohio, also uses the mistletoe for a host plant. Mistletoe is found growing in Oak trees near the Ohio River, but I have never found any (we live near the river)....
Back to the nettles and thistles--that false nettle, frostweed, looks like one I could use in the butterfly garden without impaling myself!
Again, thanks for the info. t.
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 6:59 PM:
Ken~
I can easily see why you feel the way you do about the Imperial White... It is an adorable little butterfly. The host Drooping Mistletoe is a beautiful plant too.
If you ever need seeds for any of the plants we grow for butterflies, let me know. I would be happy to send you anything I have to test over there.
I thought the story about the Au Admiral eclosing in the house with Fay was so cute!! Many of us have had the same kind of thing, some extremely hilarious! It can be quite a circus trying to wrangle one off a high place to release it outside.
I wanted to ask you~ What were the particular 5 1/2 months for your Magpie moth in the chrysalis?
I have various Swallowtails that are in diapause for that long and longer, only it's from latter fall through winter... (It is very interesting to keep track of which butterflies overwinter, which ones migrate, and which overwinter as adults.)
debnes
This message was edited Nov 16, 2007 8:37 PM
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Posted by Indy (from Alexandria, IN) on November 16, 2007 at 7:13 PM:
One use for stinging nettles [Urtica Dioica...leaf and root] that I didn't see listed here is a herbal remedy for prostate enlargement.
...
Posted by sallyg (from Anne Arundel Co., MD) on November 16, 2007 at 8:44 PM:
I have read of stinging nettle extract used for allergy treatment. I haven't tried. I can't imagine talking my kids into taking something with Stinging in the name.
kennedyh- I really enjoyed your article, both the topic and story and your writing.
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 10:22 PM:
debnes,
It was the Magpie Moth that was 5 1/2 months from my first catching the caterpillars to the evential energence of the moth.
The Aus Admiral, I caught as a caterpillar, and the very next day it became a pupa and I only had to wait twp weeks from then before we had a butterfly flying around the house!
Kennedy
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 10:37 PM:
Okay, Thanks! What season was the chrysalis in diapause? That was mainly what I wanted to know. Was it like Feb - July? That would be your colder time, wouldn't it?
Pardon the mix up,
debnes
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 11:07 PM:
I found the caterpillars in early spring, at the end of August. They pupated at the end of September, and then spent the rest of the spring and most of the summer as a pupa, with the moths emerging 10th February towards the end of summer. I would guess that this species overwinters as eggs, which hatch and start feeding at the start of spring, when the stinging nettles are growing fresh shoots and leaves,
Kennedy
...
Posted by debnes_dfw_tx (from Fort Worth, TX) on November 16, 2007 at 11:14 PM:
Fascinating Ken!
Thanks!
debnes
...
Subject: Great article!!
Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on November 16, 2007 at 8:01 AM:
Thank you, I loved it. It's nice to know the stinging nettle is useful. I just may leave a few in the garden next year.
...
Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on November 16, 2007 at 4:32 PM:
Thank you. Yes I am thinking that perhaps I should find a corner for a few stinging nettles, although I am not sure my wife will approve,
Kennedy
...
Posted by threegardeners (from North Augusta, ON) on November 16, 2007 at 4:43 PM:
Same problem with my Mom, she's allergic to them--but still----would make a good Mom barrier ;))
I have for a long time known that the Scrub Nettle Urtica incisa is the food plant for the caterpillars of the Australian Admiral butterfly Vanessa itea. This means that almost every time I pass any nettles, I give them a quick once over for caterpillars.
