Urticaceae

Abstract

Herbs, shrubs, lianas or small trees, monoecious, dioecious or rarely polygamous. Leaves alternate or opposite, sometimes anisophyllous, petiolate or sessile; lamina simple or 3–5(−7)-lobed, margin entire or dentate, usually with 3 subequal nerves from base reaching towards leaf-apex; stipules usually present, lateral or often intrapetiolar and fused. Indumentum sometimes with stinging hairs, but also frequently with stiff non-stinging hairs, which may be curled or sharply hooked; cystoliths usually punctiform, elongated or linear in epidermal cells. Inflorescences very varied, mostly pedunculate, lax or condensed racemes, often with flowers in small cymose glomerules, or sessile and condensed cymes in leaf-axils, partial inflorescences often subtended by involucral bracts, the inflorescence-axis sometimes flattened into a disk-shaped, ± fleshy receptacle. Flowers minute, unisexual or rarely bisexual, actinomorphic or (especially in female flowers) zygomorphic; perianth a single whorl of ± fused tepals or rarely the female flowers naked, pedicel often articulated below perianth.