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Published In: Annales des Sciences Naturelles; Botanique, série 4, 1: 181. 1854. (Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot., sér. 4,) Name publication detailView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 9/22/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status: Native

 

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1. Laportea canadensis (L.) Gaudich. (wood nettle)

Pl. 571 f, g; Map 2671

Plants perennial (but often flowering the first year), armed with sparse to dense, long, stinging hairs, also with sparse to dense, shorter, finer, nonstinging hairs, with rhizomes, the roots fibrous, sometimes somewhat tuberous. Stems 35–150 cm long, erect or strongly ascending, usually unbranched, often slightly zigzag. Leaves alternate, long-petiolate, stipulate. Leaf blades 6–20(–30) cm long, ovate to broadly ovate, elliptic, or broadly elliptic, broadly angled to rounded or shallowly cordate at the base, short-tapered at the tip, the margins coarsely toothed, the venation pinnate or the 2 basalmost lateral veins slightly more developed than the others; cystoliths rounded. Inflorescences axillary (but sometimes also appearing terminal), small clusters arranged in panicles, the staminate panicles usually shorter-stalked then the subtending petiole and positioned at nodes below the pistillate ones, which usually are longer than the subtending petiole. Bractlets absent. Staminate flowers with 5 sepals, these 0.8–1.1 mm long, cupped around the stamens. Stamens 5. Pistillate flowers with 4 free sepals, the calyx consisting of 2 smaller sepals, these 0.2–0.3 mm long (occasionally totally absent), spreading, alternating with 2 larger sepals, these 0.8–1.1 mm long, loosely cupped around but not fused to the ovary and fruit. Style elongate (persistent at fruiting and sometimes hooked), the stigmatic region linear. Fruits 2–3 mm long, obliquely attached at the tip of a short, winged stalk, strongly flattened, the body more or less circular in outline, greenish brown to dark brown, glabrous. 2n=26. May–August.

Scattered to common throughout the state (eastern U.S. west to North Dakota and Oklahoma; Canada). Bottomland forests, swamps, margins of sloughs and oxbows, and banks of streams and rivers; also roadsides.

Steyermark (1963) noted that this species is one of the greatest nuisances to those hiking in bottomlands in Missouri, especially because it tends to occur in dense, large stands. In deference to his adventures in the neotropics, he was quick to point out that the burning sensation imparted by Laportea cannot compare to the severity of the stinging hairs of some tropical genera.

 


 

 
 
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