Don't make a rash decision on future of weed patch

MANY BENEFITS OF THE HUMBLE NETTLE

- MIKE LOCKLEY

I HAVE, at the bottom of my garden, allowed the much maligned nettle to flourish to the extent it is now rampant.

And I've been rewarded by witnessing butterflies and birds make the weed bed a haven. Many butterflies, such as the rapidly declining small tortoiseshell, rely on the humble nettle. It does a lot of good.

Yet we have very little time for it, primarily because it stings. We hack it down, we destroy its habitat.

This is a plant chronically misunderstood. In fact, most folk know very little about nettles apart from the fact they deliver pain and a rash.

It is a true wonder, described by scientists Dorota Kregiel, Ewelina Pawlikowska and Hubert Antolak of Poland's Lodz University of Technology as "an ordinary plant with extraordinary properties".

Today, we deliver the long overdue good press the nettle deserves.

Here beginneth the nettle lesson.

First there is the word and the word nettle derives from the Anglo Saxon "noedl" - needle. The plant is covered in them, tiny ones called trichomes which inject a cocktail of formic acid, histamine, acetylcholine and serotonin when making contact with skin.

That brief burning sensation is a very low price to pay when you consider the benefits nettles bestow on us.

Here beginneth a history lesson.

During World War One, Royal Navy blockades led to a chronic shortage of imported cotton in Germany and, therefore, a clothing crisis.

The urgent hunt for a cotton substitute began, with even flax and paper among the failed experiments. Then Vienna researcher Gottfried Richter unveiled the fruits of his 15 year study - he had invented a nettle fabric. And it worked.

The highly fibrous stem made for outstanding thread.

In 1918, the US Department of Commerce declared: "Nettle fibre is considered the best substitute for cotton that Germany has found. It is now being produced on a large scale for military use."