Small Nettle
Small Nettle - Urtica urens
Short to medium plant with weakly stinging hairs, the leaves more coarsely toothed than U. dioica and the lower leaves shortly stalked, not long stalked. Male and female flowers on the same plant, many female and few male, in ascending spikes.
Urtica dioica
Annual. Usually smaller and more compact than Common Nettle (although this is very variable in size) with more jaggedly toothed leaves; terminal leaf-tooth about as long as adjacent laterals (terminal leaf-tooth is longer in common nettle)
Cultivated, waste and disturbed ground, gardens.
June to October.
Annual.
Common throughout Britain, especially in the east.
Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 267 of the 617 tetrads.
Graham Calow
Stoke Golding
23 March 2017
Graham Calow
Cosby Allotments
16 May 2016
Graham Calow
Higham on the Hill
18 August 2015
Graham Calow
Higham on the Hill
18 August 2015
deeply toothed rounded leaves with
terminal leaf-tooth roughly equal to the lateral ones.
Graham Calow
Sapcote
21 April 2012
Graham Calow
Sapcote
21 April 2012
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 Field margin near Spring Gardens Sapcote SP49189386 (taken 22.7.2010).JPG)
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Agromyza anthracina
The larva of the Agromyzid fly Agromyza anthracina mines the leaves of Common Nettle and other related host plants. The mine usually starts away from the leaf edge and has a coiled intestine like start; it has frass in long threads in the broader part of the mine.
Agromyza pseudoreptans/reptans agg.
The larvae of the Agromyzif flies comprising the Agromyza pseudoreptans/reptans agg. mine the leaves of Common Nettle and other related host plants. The mine is a long blotch mine, usually adjacent to the edge of the leaf, which turns black. The mines of the two species cannot be reliably separated to species level and for this reason we treat them as an aggregate.
Dasineura urticae
The larva of the gall-midge Dasineura urticae causes galls to form on the leaves of Common (Stinging) Nettle and Small (Annual) Nettle. The galls are pouch swellings of midrib, leaf, petiole or flower stalk. Occasionally they are found in flowers or stem. There is an opening on the upperside. The larva is white, but according to Redfern and Shirley (2011) there may be pink, orange or red inquiline larvae inside. .
Puccinia urticata
Puccinia urticata is a rust fungus which causes galls on the stems and leaves of the alternate host, nettles (Common Nettle and Small Nettle). The galls are reddish and can be large, causing considerable swelling and distortion of stem and petioles. Orange aecia and spermogonia are borne on the swollen areas and leaf undersides.