Ohio State WeedLab,University of Ohio, Bugwood.org

Canada nettle (Laportea canadensis), also called “wood nettle” or simply “stinging nettle,” causes the immediate response by the unwary person who reaches out to touch the actually graceful foliaged plant with the fat drooping clusters of small blossoms.  The delayed response – usually more irritation caused by an unremitting itch – is due to contact with poison ivy (Toxocodendron radicans), another attractively foliaged plant especially when autumn weather brings out its bright red and orange coloration.  But what is it that makes these plants toxic to us?

Joseph M. DeTomaso, University of California-Davis, Bugwood.org

The very hairy stems and leaves of Canada nettle contain small needle-sharp barbs that can pierce the skin.  The intense sting is caused by a complex chemistry of compounds that also form the basis of formic acid, the stinging compound released by some species of biting ants.  Many people experience sharp pain from a nettle’s sting with some people, who apparently are especially susceptible, reporting pain for hours and, among a very rare few, reactions that include swelling and pain lasting for days.

Stinging nettles have a wide distribution with members of the family Urticaceae found throughout the temperate zones, including Europe, Asia and North America.  A few species of nettle, such as Urtica doica, also known as “stinging” and “wood” nettle, have native ranges that include both Europe and North America.  This particular species occurs in Illinois, but only rarely in our area where Canada nettle is common.

As you might suspect such a widely occurring plant with such bad effects has a host of folk stories and a long history.  A very toxic form of nettle was supposed to have been introduced into Britain by Romans.  Told that the climate of Britain was nearly unendurable due to winter cold, Roman soldiers planted nettles and harvested leaves and stems which they then rubbed into their arms and legs. The belief seemed to be a combination of hope that the ache of multiple stings would help warm them and that their irritated reddened skin would then retain heat.

Heat is the one sure method to remove the sting from nettles.  Once processed by boiling the plant losses all its painful chemicals.  Nettle stew, boiled nettle salad, and even nettle pudding and nettle beer were among the food uses.  Heat processing also allowed nettle textile manufacturing which actually flourished for a short time during World War I in Germany and Austria when raw cotton imports were unavailable.  Nettle cloth was said to be very fine and comparable to high quality linen and even silk.

Clothing, however, is the one way that the “ouch” of contact with nettles can be delayed, as many a hiker has sadly discovered.  The stinging hairs and barbs can detach onto clothing and then release their stings at a later time.

James Miller USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

The ache and itch of poison ivy often doesn’t start until hours or even days after contact with this plant.  Oil, called urushiol, contained in all parts of the plant, but especially concentrated in the stems, causes an allergic reaction in most people.  The weeping blisters and reddened rash areas are due to the body’s flooding the contact area with histamines.

Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org

Only actual contact with the oil – not just walking near a poison ivy plant, or contact with the fluid released from poison ivy blisters – causes the allergic reaction.  But, oil from poison ivy can be transmitted on clothing or even by pets or livestock that carry the oil on their coats.  One of the more dangerous forms of contact can be exposure to burning poison ivy, as the oil in the plant can be carried in smoke and cause throat and lung irritation.  A few people have little to no reaction to poison ivy, but such apparent immunity may not be constant and can change through life or, even, in the course of a year.

Folk remedies for both nettle stings and poison ivy rash, oddly, included using the plants themselves as cures.  The juice of a nettle plant, extracted by squeezing the stem, was said to relieve the burn of nettle barbs.  Old folk remedies for creating immunity to poison ivy included eating a few early-spring leaves or drinking a tea made from the leaves, a form of “cure” far more likely to cause poison ivy rash in the mouth, throat, or digestive tract.

Orange jewelweed can reduce the sting of stinging nettle. Pen DauBach, Clifftop.

An old remedy for human reactions to both plants offered the added benefit of ready availability as this curing plant often grows in the same area and even among both nettles and poison ivy.  Juices from the leaves and stems of jewelweed, also called spotted-touch-me-not, may relieve the painful acid reaction to a nettle sting.  Native Americans also used a poultice made from jewelweed to reduce the rash and itch of poison ivy exposure.  Both orange (Impatiens capensis) and yellow jewelweed (I. pallida) grow in rich, moist soils in shady areas and both species can be found in our area, although orange jewelweed tends to be more common.  The small, cornucopia-shaped flowers begin blooming in June and continue through September on plants that can reach four feet in height.

The alternate common name – touch-me-not – is derived from the same characteristic that gives all impatiens their scientific and common generic name.  These plants are, simply, “impatient” and spread their ripened seed at the slightest touch.  The bedding garden varieties of impatiens have been hybridized from species originating in Africa and in Europe, and, as most gardeners know, are wont to spread seed the short distance from pots into gardens.  Our native varieties are a bit more exuberant and will explosively eject seed for a several foot distance when a ripe seedpod is touched.

A landscape – or, more properly in our bluff lands – a creekscape dotted with poison ivy, stinging nettle and jewelweed may cause us to sigh and wish away the plants that hurt us.  But, the three types of plants also illustrate additional benefits and harms.

Poison ivy fruits nourish more than 90 species of animals. Ohio State Weed Lab, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org.

Poison ivy berries, small white fruits growing in clusters, sustain and are relished by about 90 species of animals.  Nearly all mammals of our area, including opossums, raccoons, squirrels and deer, and more than 75 songbirds as well as quail and turkey eat poison ivy berries.  At least two moth species depend on poison ivy foliage as food during their larval, or caterpillar, stages of life.

The brightly colored upperwings of an Eastern Comma. David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org

The underwing shows the white "comma" marking of Eastern Comma. David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org

Stinging nettle is the larval food host for several butterfly species, including the strikingly beautiful Red Admiral and the more cryptically colored but still elegant Eastern Comma and Question Mark.  Two moth species also rely on nettle during their larval phase.

Our native impatiens also is host to at least two moth species during their larval phase.  And, the cornucopia-shaped flowers offer a rich nectar source for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies.

But, while native impatiens may delight us, and hummingbirds, both in color and abundance of bloom and perhaps offer us relief from a nettle’s painful sting, they can have another, very damaging effect.  Livestock, including cattle, goats and sheep, can be poisoned if they eat large quantities of jewelweed.  For these animals spotted-touch-me-not is a truism rather than a name of playfulness.  Beauty – or eatabilty and utility – perhaps is not in the eye of the beholder so much as it is within the nature of the species.

To learn more about plants of our area, particularly those that, like jewelweed, may cause toxic reactions to domestic pets and livestock, the public was invited to a talk with Dr. Dwight Boehm of the Waterloo Animal Hospital.  Dr. Boehm’s presentation was on Monday October 4^th at the Monroe County Annex Building, 901 N. Illinois St., Waterloo.  This presentation was co-hosted by Clifftop and the Monroe County University of Illinois Extension Service and as part of their continuing seminar series “Meet the Neighbors.”

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the September 17th 2010 edition of the Monroe County Independent.

© 2010 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.

Tom Rollins, Thomas Rollins Photography

As the dominant trees of our bluffs shine in autumn’s sun, creating a glowing tapestry of color, they also provide a rich food source for wildlife.  Mast is the broad term for various nuts and fruits produced by trees and shrubs.  There are two kinds: hard mast and soft mast; both are crucial in sustaining the wildlife of our woods’ ecosystem and in the regeneration and continuity of our forest lands.

The “overstory” trees — the tall, mature oaks and hickories along with scattered Black Walnut trees — produce acorns and nuts, the hard-shelled and long-lasting crunchy foodstuff of hard mast.  “Understory” trees and shrubs — which are able to grow well within the filtered shade of a woodland — produce fruits, berries and drupes, all with a soft, perishable layer holding single or multiple seeds, the soft mast relished by wildlife and, sometimes, humans.

The answer to the question “What’s for dinner?”  almost always entails, for most of us, a trip to the refrigerator or freezer which was previously stocked by trips to the supermarket,  paid for by journeys to and from the workplace.  Most of us work hard for our food — probably contributing far more hours per day to subsistence than the two to four hours needed by members of the few remaining gathering-hunting cultures, perhaps the only  true “leisure societies”  on Earth.  For wildlife, the answer to the same question is found in even simpler and entirely raw terms — the hard and soft mast of woodlands,  supplemented, in warm months, with a protein-rich insect, spider, and crustacean diet.

The availability of mast for wildlife is never guaranteed.  The vagaries and timing of temperature and precipitation throughout the year cause tremendous fluctuations in the quality and quantity of both hard and soft mast produced each year, often challenging wildlife to find alternate food sources.  The very variety of food sources, and the ability of wildlife to partake of so many foodstuffs, provide a safety net for alternative wildlife sustenance.  A number of tree species produce soft mast.

The dark purple fruits of our warty-knobbed hackberry trees are favorites of fox, squirrels, quail, turkey, cedar waxwings, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, mockingbirds, and robins.  Also dark purple, but with a blackberry shape, are the fruits of red mulberry trees.  Most birds and small mammals adore the fruits and generally will out-compete humans intent on turning mulberries into delicious jams, jellies or pies.

Our Eastern Red Cedar trees, trooping along fence rows, invading

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

old fields, and skulking deep in the woods, provide valuable nesting and roosting habitat for birds.  Their dark blue berries with a whitish blush overall, which are borne only on the female trees, are favored by bobwhite quail, turkey, rabbits, fox, skunks, opossums, and coyotes.

The black berries of Wild Black Cherry trees are very popular with non-game birds, deer, turkey, squirrels, mice and voles.  The bark and berries are rich in prussic acid, the old-fashioned term for hydrocyanic acid, and a referent to the rich blue color known as “Prussian blue.”  Native Americans used the berries and infusions made from the bark for coughs and congestion as well as a de-wormer.  Ingredients for cough medicines still are extracted from the berries.  Black bear cubs relish the fruits and while still small enough to get into the trees, will climb up to feast while their mother stands guard below.  In the Appalachian Mountain area a common caution  among outdoorsmen is to “Watch out for cherry bears!”

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

While black cherry fruits are an early summer treat,  mid- to late-autumn brings on persimmon tree fruits.  The thick, one-inch round, purple-black fruits — slightly mushy when ripe — offer a sweetly complex flavor.  But woe to the individual who pops an unripened persimmon into their mouth, for no more tart and bitter a taste can be imagined!  As the English explorer and founder, in 1607, of Jamestown, VA, Captain John Smith wrote,  “If the fruit not be ripe it will draw a mans mouth with much torment.”  Ripe persimmon fruits are favored by songbirds, quail, flying squirrels, fox, raccoons, skunks, deer, dogs, and, above all, opossums.  An early-1800s American song noted the passion for persimmons:

“Possum up the ‘simmon tree,

Raccoon on the ground.

Raccoon says to the ole ‘possum,

“Won’t you throw them ‘simmons down?”

Early settlers made a beer with fermented persimmons and wheat as the primary ingredients.  Both Amerindians and early French settlers used persimmons as an ingredient in making breads.

As the name indicates, Possum Haw, or Swamp Holly, also

Pen DauBach, Clifftop

produces fruits loved by opossums.  Our only native holly produces bright red fruits which remain on the tree during the winter, so long as birds and mammals let them stay.  Although the secondary name suggests this holly only grows in moist soils, it actually can be found far from bottomland woods and does well in a variety of habitats, including field edges and drier slopes.

The red berries of flowering dogwoods and the white berries of rough-leaved dogwoods, both high in calcium and fat content, sustain 36 species of birds and mammals, including deer, rabbits, turkey, and quail.  Both the bark and berries of dogwoods contain cornic acid and both were used by Native Americans as a remedy for malaria, a usage also adopted by those living in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War when they were unable to obtain quinine.

A number of shrubs, in addition to rough-leaved dogwoods,  also produce food for wildlife.  Spicebush’s glossy red berries are favorites of rodents and squirrels and also were used by early European settlers in cooking.  Smooth sumac’s clustered red berries; Serviceberry’s reddish-purple berries; and the dark-blue drupes of sassafras are eaten by birds and small mammals.  Our native Viburnums — Black Haw and Nannyberry — produce blue-black berries favored by game birds.  Whether growing as a shrub or in

Ohio State Univ., Bugwood.org

vine form, the small white berries of poison ivy provide food for over 60 species of birds.  Animals seem to have no difficulty with this plant, richly colored and attractive red in the autumn, which causes a scratchy, weepy itch on contact for most people.

Arching along the woods’ edges and often forming dense thickets, nine species of wild blackberries provide beneficial soft mast.  The canes have a two-year life span, fruiting in the second year.  Thickets formed by blackberries are favorite nesting spots for rabbits, and the warblers Yellow-breasted Chats and Common Yellow-throats as well as Eastern Towhees, Brown Thrashers, and Indigo Buntings.  Box turtles, deer, rabbits, and turkey relish the berries.  Extremely rich in vitamin C, wild blackberries also make excellent jams.  Native Americans and early European settlers also used the berries as a medicinal for diarrhea and stomach ache.

Hanging like ropes from the forest’s canopy, wild grapes provide oodles of soft mast to stock the wildlife larder.  There are five species of grapes native to Monroe and Randolph Counties.  The grapes are eaten by bobwhite quail, turkey, pileated and red-bellied woodpeckers, thrushes, waxwings, catbirds, cardinals, and deer.  Migrating Tennessee Warblers love them and often will defend their temporary patch of grapes against other hungry birds.  Raccoons, opossums, skunks and squirrels also eat wild grapes.

Taken together, hard and soft mast provide food stuffs for over 90

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop

species of birds and mammals in our bluffs’ woods.  But the quality and integrity, based on the very variety of tree, shrub, vine and herbaceous species found within our woodlands, now face some challenges.  These alterations, largely a result of human actions and inaction, threaten to close the larder for wildlife or, at a minimum, to reduce mast bounty to one or two varieties of food offerings.

Invasive tree species and exotic invasive shrubs and vines are quickly taking over forest edges and moving deep within our woodlands.  As they do so, they out-compete and shade-out native species, reducing our once bountiful and diverse woodlands to bare-ground monocultures of limited to no food-producing aliens.

Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), imported from Asia to Pennsylvania as an ornamental in 1751, probably has not been purposefully planted for more than a century, but now occurs in nearly all states.  A prolific seeder (up to 300,000 seeds per tree), it also spreads through numerous root suckers and re-sprouts from cut stumps and root fragments.  Once established, Tree-of-Heaven can quickly take over a site and form an impenetrable thicket.  Unfortunately, Tree-of-Heaven thickets are only too numerous along the talus slope of our bluffs all along Bluff Road; even more unfortunately, Tree-of-Heaven is spreading deep into the woods.

In similar fashion, Silk Tree or Mimosa (Albizia julbrissin), is a strong competitor to native trees and shrubs in open areas and forest edges, particularly along stream banks.  Widely planted as an ornamental since its introduction from Asia in 1745, and a particular favorite amongst early French settlers of our area,  it spreads by both vegetative and seed reproduction.

Both bush honeysuckle and Japanese (vining) honeysuckle (Lonicera mackii and L. Japonica) also were introduced as ornamental plants and sometimes still are  recommended as wildlife browse, particularly for deer.  But the hunter who pins hopes on these plants soon learns to curse the day he or she encouraged honeysuckle, for, while deer do eat the plants, they cannot keep up with the rampant growth.  Where a healthy woodlands once nourished a variety of game and non-game species, a honeysuckle thicket soon grows and offers little food but endless tangles and noisy trip snares for humans who seek to walk through the nearly solid mass of shrubs and vines.

And, though a native of our bottomland forests, Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) also is an invasive of our upland oak-hickory woodlands, particularly along moister north-facing slopes.  Although seeds are not produced until trees are at least 22 years old, sugar maples are prolific reproducers, with the winged seeds carried up to 330 feet by wind.  A Michigan study tallied 70,000 seeds per acre in the center of a clear-cut in a forest.  Coupled with high average germination — up to 95% — mixed-wood forests can become dominated by maple growth.

Sadly, much of this encroachment is due to us and, perhaps most regrettably to our lack of action.  Certainly our inaction is as innocent in intent as that of the Pennsylvania farmer who first planted and admired the speedy growth of a Tree-of-Heaven.   While we happily profit from a timber sale of White and Black Oaks and Hickory trees, we do not plan for the cleanup and maintenance of the empty spaces left after logging.  We assume that “nature” will rightly guide the regeneration of the same species which then can be walked under, hunted amongst and, finally, harvested, in turn, by our grandchildren.  We do not see ourselves — nor the species introduced by our great-great-great-grandparents and the species to which we lay out logged-over welcome mats — as forces of “nature.”

By our actions or inaction we can help preserve a healthy and diverse woodland ecosystem.  But our actions or inaction also can create a maple shade desert, a Tree-of-Heaven ghetto or a honeysuckle wilderness of tangles.  Our deer, turkey, quail, squirrels,

Dennis FitzWilliam, Clifftop

songbirds, mushrooms, wildflowers and all members of the forest biota depend on mast which itself is part of a slow, steady regenerative process.  Not every acorn, hickory nut, soft fruit  — all the mast that keeps wildlife fed and healthy — is consumed.  Some fall into the soft duff of leaves and moist soil in the filtered shade where they take root, slowly grow and recreate the forest itself.  But under the dense shade created by invasives the next generation of mast producers grow leggy and weak, unable to compete and complete their cycle.  In time, food sources are reduced and the wildlife that depends on such foods also fail to successfully reproduce.  Forest bounty and forest diversity are one and the same.

Clifftop, a local nonprofit organization, is focused on preserving and protecting area bluff lands.

A version of this article appeared in the November 7 2007 edition of the Monroe County Clarion.

© 2007 all content rights reserved, Clifftop NFP.