Nettles For Food and Medicine
Despite its nondescript appearance, the stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) has a knack for grabbing the attention of anyone passing by. Unfortunately, most people never notice nettles until they are viciously attacked with sharp, hot, itching stings. Consequently, most people familiar with nettles regard them as pesky and undesirable weeds. Few people today realize that nettles may actually be counted among nature's most useful plants.
As is frequently the case with common names, the term nettle is often used for plants that aren't nettles at all. In the Midwest, the plant known as Red Dead-Nettle is actually a member of the Mint Family and the Horse Nettle (which is poisonous) is actually a Nightshade (Seymour, 1997). The true nettles belong to the Urticaceae, also known as the Nettle Family. The Nettle Family is found worldwide and consists of about 45 genera and 700-1000 species. Most of the species are tropical and herbaceous (Walters and Keil, 1996).
Urtica dioica, the plant most often called by the name Stinging Nettle, is a dioecious perennial plant that stands about one meter tall. It has simple, opposite, toothed leaves (5-10cm long) with persistent stipules and, most importantly, stinging trichomes. The radially symmetrical flowers are arranged in axillary panicles, completely lack petals, and have 4 sepals and 4 stamens. The fruits are small, oval achenes (1-2mm long). In addition to growing from seed, the plants are able to spread rhizomatously (Radford, Ahles and Bell, 1968).
The Stinging Nettle is actually not nearly as common in the U.S. as the closely related Wood Nettle (Laportea canadensis). The Wood Nettle is often mistaken for the Stinging Nettle by most people because the Wood Nettle also has stinging hairs. Laportea canadensis is not as tall as Urtica dioica, has larger leaves (up to 20cm) and minute stipules. The staminate flowers have 5 sepals and 5 stamens and are found in axillary panicles. The pistillate flowers have only 4 sepals and are found in either terminal or axillary panicles. The achene is crescent-shaped (Radford, Ahles and Bell, 1968). The wood nettle grows well in rich forests and may be particularly abundant along hiking trails near streams. Hikers are frequently dismayed to discover that when such trails aren't carefully maintained, nettles quickly begin to arch dangerously over the paths.
There are several other species from the Nettle Family in the United States, but only 4 of the genera represented, Urtica, Hesperocnide, Laportea, and Urera, have the characteristic stinging trichomes.
Nettles and Catrin present parent-child relationships in different ways, possibly as a result of the authors’ personal experiences. The father in Nettles tries to protect his son from any pain and danger the world throws at him. In Catrin, there is too a parent-child relationship between the mother and daughter, but at times it seems strained and fraught with conflict.
Rabbit tobacco is also known as lasting, everlasting, sweet balsam, white balsam, feather-weed, and sweet cudweed. Its scientific name is Gaphalium obtusifolium. These annual herbs reach a height of 1 to 3 feet and have erect stems with brown, shriveled leaves persisting into winter and stems covered with felt-like hairs in summer. The leaves are 1 to 3 inches long, and alternate. The flowers, minute in whitish heads, appear in late summer to fall. Fields, pastures, and disturbed areas are the sites of this common native plant of the eastern United States. The Cherokee named it rabbit tobacco because they believe it was the rabbit who took attended the plant.
The Crucible and Good night, and Good luck were two very well made and interesting films. According to chapter 1 of Crime and Justice: Learning Through Cases by Watson-Boyes, witch hunt can be defined as referring to a “powerful conspiracy to prosecute individuals without due process and without protections for individual rights”. As I watched both films, I noticed that both share themes that are important to understand. It is apparent that the one of the themes each film shares is dissent versus authority which is where individuals should have a say and be able to speak out opposing the views of the government without being penalized for their actions. Another shared theme is this idea of mass hysteria and emotional disorder in each of the societies. As seen in The Crucible, individuals in this society are
From a financial and marketing standpoint, the effects have been catastrophic. In some areas, milk production has decreased by an average of two liters daily and calving index (efficiency at which new calves are produced) went down by an average of twenty days (Davies NP). Th...
Hubble, Edwin. 1929, "A Relation between Distance and Radial Velocity among Extra-Galactic Nebulae" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 168-173
B.F. Skinner was considered the father of behavioral approach to psychology and a noticeable spokesperson for behaviorism. According to Corey (2013), he advocated radical behaviorism. In other words it placed a primary importance on the effects of environment on behavior. Skinner was a determinist; he did not consider that humans had free choices. He recognized the existence of feeling and thoughts, but disagreed about them causing humans action. In its place, he underlined the cause-and-effect links between objective, observable environmental conditions and behavior. Skinner claimed that more than enough attention had been given to the internal states of mind and motives, which cannot be observed and changed directly and not enough focus
The French Revolution is heavily criticized by Arendt. She finds the heritage of the French Revolution to be...
Ralph - Ralph is one of the older kids stranded on the island, one with a natural leadership quality about him. He is one of the stronger, if not the strongest of the boys; 12 year old with common sense to help him get along on his own; unfortunately, common sense doesn’t fly too well with small children. Ralph is stuck between what is considered fun, and what needs to get done in order to have peace on the island. Not a position many would like to be in, but as he was chosen leader, he has the respect of most of the kids on the island.
Two years after Skinner’s birth, his brother Edward Skinner was born. The Skinner brothers kept themselves out of trouble in the railroad town of two thousand people by experimenting in building things out of makeshift materials. A couple things that the boys built were a shack in the woods, and a cart with an opposite direction steering wheel. Skinner would use these skills later on in his life. Skinner also occupied his time by writing short stories and novels. At the age of nine, Skinner joined the Junior Boy Scouts where he experienced camping, and learning how to be ind...
to the lobster and crab. Their closest living relative today is the horseshoe crab.The name
Like some other psychologist, B.F. Skinner has criticized cognitive psychology in reviewed articles, providing examples and reasoning’s to justify his belief that cognitive psychology
Plant defences are those mechanisms employed by plants in response to herbivory and parasitism. According to Hanley et al. (2007), “the tissues of virtually all terrestrial, freshwater, and marine plants have qualities that to some degree reduce herbivory, including low nitrogen concentration, low moisture content, toxins or digestibility-reducing compounds”. The type of chemical defence may be species specific (Scott 2008). The defences that plants possess may be in the form of chemical production or in the form of physical defences such as thorns or spikes and even through reinforced, rigid leaves. “The compounds that are produced in response to herbivory can either have a direct effect on the attacker itself (e.g. toxins or digestibility reducers), or serve as indirect defenses by attracting the natural enemies of the herbivores” (Bezemer & van Dam 2005). This essay will focus on chemical plant defences and in particular the effects of terpenes, phenolics, nitrogen-based defences as well as allelopathy in plants.
B. F. Skinner, a psychologist, believed that one's behavior is determined from the outcome. “The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again” (Skinner). Punishments and rewards determine whether a certain kind of behavior will become a habit. Skinner believes that the human behavior is a product of the environment.
Cotton is an annual, biennial or perennial plant, but in cultivation it is generally treated as an annual; herbaceous to short shrub or small tree - two to six feet tall. It consist of a primary axis, erect and branched with a vegetative lower zone having monopodial branches, and a fruiting upper zone with sympodial branches. The leaves of the cotton plant alternate, cordate petiolate, three to nine lobed and palmately veined, with varying size, texture, shape and hairiness. The large, showy, cream yellow, red or purple flowers are extra axillary, terminal, solitary, and borne on sympodial branches. The calyx (= collectively the sepals) consists of a very short cup-shaped structure at the base of the corolla. The five petals of the corolla are either free or slightly united at the base of the convoluted bud (Sundararaj, 1974).
Graduating from Hamilton College in 1926 with a B.A. in English literature, Skinner had spent some time as a struggling writer. He was living with his parents due to his lack of success in that field. Skinner was living in so calle...