Everyone knows that nettles “burn” the skin, let’s figure out how this happens.

It does this with its finest thorns, which cover the leaves and stem of the plant. Each hair is a multicellular outgrowth, at the end of which there is a stinging apparatus in the form of one huge cell. When you touch the nettle, the tips of the hairs break, and the smallest sharp needles pierce the skin. The poisonous cell juice contained in the thorns – formic acid, histamine and choline – gets into the skin, and under its influence redness, itching and a feeling of a sharp burn around the puncture site appear.

But there is a plant similar to nettle, but you don’t need to be afraid of it at all, it differs only in white inflorescences, which nettles do not have. Deadnettle (stinging nettle) is a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the genus Deadnettle of the Lamiaceae family. Outwardly, it is very similar to the common nettle, but it does not have stinging hairs.