can you explain this line to me stinging bhair of nettle leaves inject methanoic acid causing burning pain !!!!
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The nettle species, Urtica dioica, actually encompasses six different subspecies, all but one of which have stinging hairs. It is more common in areas with moist soil – which explains its ubiquity in the UK! It’s also abundant in Asia, North America, much of Europe, and even some Northern African countries. Despite it being so widespread, however, there’s still a lot we don’t know about stings from stinging nettles.
What we do know well is how they occur. Stinging nettles are covered with countless tiny hollow hairs called trichomes. When something brushes against these hairs, their very fragile silica tips break off, and the remainder of the hair can then act like a needle. It pierces the skin, and releases a cocktail of various chemicals from the base of the hair, and it’s these that cause the sting.
What’s in this mix of different chemicals that causes the sting? Whilst we still haven’t identified every single compound in the mixture, we have some idea. We used to think that the main component was formic acid, the same compound contained in ant venom. Whilst formic acid is certainly capable of causing a stinging sensation, and it is present in stinging nettles, it’s now thought that it’s present in too low a concentration to account for the extended pain of a stinging nettle sting.
Other chemicals contained in the stinging nettle venom, and the ones we now think are primarily responsible for the pain it induces, are histamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin. Serotonin, in particular, might sound familiar – it’s produced in our bodies, and sometimes referred to as the ‘happy hormone’, though it’s actually responsible for a number of other roles too. When injected by the stinging nettle, however, it functions as an irritant, leading to pain. Acetylcholine is another neurotransmitter that can accomplish a similar effect, and you might remember histamine from previous discussions of allergies, particularly hayfever. In the venom, histamine causes inflammation and pain.
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