Common Nettle

Free-standing spruces grow 30 to 40 meters high, in dense stands they even stretch to 60 meters. Their sharp, piercing needles sit on small stems, and the hanging cones fall to the ground as "fir cones" in the fall. The spruce was named Tree of the Year 2017 because it does not tolerate a lack of water or waterlogging. It will therefore not cope well with the expected climatic changes - Germany's most common tree species could soon become rare.

The evergreen clove tree is a child of the tropics; heat and humidity of up to 100 percent are just right for the tree, which can grow to about 12 meters high and 130 years old. Its dried flower buds are used as a spice and also as a remedy; because they resemble small nails in shape, they used to be called "little nails." The power of the medicinal plant of the year 2010 can be easily tested: if you bite on a clove, you will feel a burning sensation on your tongue and the slight anesthesia.

The hemp plant is one of the few climbing plants whose tendrils wind clockwise (seen from above). North of the Alps, hops were cultivated in monasteries as a potent seasoning and preservative from the 8th century at the latest. Its breakthrough came with the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, which ensured that beer could only be preserved with hops. Other beer ingredients, such as the psychoactive henbane, have since become a thing of the past.