Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Rosales > Urticaceae > Boehmeria > Boehmeria nivea

Boehmeria nivea (Chinese grass)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Ramie (/ˈreɪmi/, RAY-mee) is a flowering plant in the nettle family Urticaceae, native to eastern Asia. It is a herbaceous perennial growing to 1–2.5 m tall; the leaves are heart-shaped, 7–15 cm long and 6–12 cm broad, and white on the underside with dense small hairs—this gives it a silvery appearance; unlike stinging nettles, the hairs do not sting. The true ramie or China grass, is also called Chinese plant or white ramie.
View Wikipedia Record: Boehmeria nivea

Infraspecies

Boehmeria nivea f. nipponivea
Boehmeria nivea tenacissima

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Monoecious
Hazards [2]  Although members of the nettle family, plants in this genus do not have stinging hairs;
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Structure [3]  Shrub
Usage [2]  A fibre is obtained from the inner bark of the stem - of excellent quality, it is used for textiles, linen etc and is said to be moth-proof; Yields are from 375 to 900 kilos of fibre (per acre?); Two to four harvests per year are possible depending upon the climate, it is harvested as the stems turn brown; Best harvested as the female flowers open according to another report; The outer bark is removed and then the fibrous inner bark is taken off and boiled before being woven into thread; The fibres are the longest known in the plant realm.; The fibre is also used for making paper; The leaves are removed from the stems, the stems are steamed and the fibres stripped off. The fibres are cooked for 2 hours with lye, fresh material might require longer cooking, and they are then beaten in a Hollander beater[189] before being made into paper.
Height [2]  5.904 feet (1.8 m)
Width [2]  39 inches (1 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Boehmeria nivea

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Norfolk Island National Park II 1723 Australian external territories, Australia  

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 7del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0