Common Names

Dead nettle
Nettle flowers
Stingless nettle
White archangel
White dead-nettle
White nettle
Back to Top

Parts Usually Used

Plant, flowers
Back to Top

Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Blind nettle is a perennial plant; the hollow quadrangular stem is hairy, little-branched, and green or sometimes violet-hued. The leaves are opposite, petioled, ovate and cordate, hairy on both sides, and serrate. White bilabiate flowers appear from April to October.
Back to Top

Where Found

Found in gardens and waste grounds of New England, and in Europe along roadsides, hedges, fences, walls, railroad embankments, and thickets.
Back to Top

Medicinal Properties

Antispasmodic, astringent, expectorant, styptic
Back to Top

Legends, Myths and Stories

According to an old recipe book, steel dipped in the juice of this plant becomes flexible.
Back to Top

Uses

An infusion made from the plant is used for leucorrhea, irregular menstrual periods, and weak menstrual flow, stomach and intestinal problems, and vaginal douches. The infusion can be used as a bath additive to relieve uterine cramps, boils, and tumors. A poultice of boiled leaves and flowers can be used for tumors, boils, sores, varicose veins, and gouty pains. A tea or tincture made from the flowers is used for insomnia. Use young leaves in a salad for a spring tonic. Acts as astringent and is soothing with specific action on the reproductive system, reducing benign prostate enlargement and acting as a uterine tonic; useful after prostate surgery.
Back to Top

Formulas or Dosages

Infusion: use 2 tsp. plant or flowers with 1 cup water. Take 1 to 1 1/2 cups a day, unsweetened, a mouthful at a time.

Powder: take 1/4 to 1/2 tsp., 3 times a day.

Tincture: 15 ml. per day.
Back to Top

Bibliography

• The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, pgs., 158-159, 168-169, 182.
• Culpeper's Complete Herbal & English Physician, by Nicholas Culpeper, pgs., 127, 227.
• Herb Gardening, compiled by The Robison York State Herb Garden, pg., 165.
• Planetary Herbology, by Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D., O.M.D., pgs., 332, 333-334.
• The Herb Book, by John Lust, pgs., 127-128, 481, 482, 566.

Back to Top