Shrub 0.5-4 m high; monoecious or dioecious; stems greenish, glabrate to sparsely appressed-hirsutulous. Leaves membranous; petioles (1.5-)3-8 cm long, sparsely strigose to glabrate; stipules lanceolate, pubescent, flat, dark, 2.5-3.5 mm long; blades elliptic to slightly obovate, mostly 8-23 cm long 3.5-12 cm broad, glabrous (except along veins) and minutely pustulate, 3-nerved at base but other- wise pinnately veined (veins 8-10 on a side), the narrowed base rounded to truncate, the margins coarsely dentate (12-25 teeth on a side), the apex acuminate. Inflorescences unisexual; female flowers in terminal compound racemes (panicles) 10-25 cm long, with ca 15-35 lateral branches, the longer of these 3-7 cm long; male flowers in axillary spikes mostly 5-20 cm long, ca 1.5-2.5 mm thick, peduncles ca 1 cm long or less. Pistillate flowers solitary; bracts linear-lanceolate, acuminate, pubescent, ca 0.5-1 mm long, pedicels 0.5-1 mm long at anthesis; calyx-lobes 5, lanceolate, 0.9-1.2 mm long; ovary densely and prominently verrucose-hispidulous, the styles free, basally thickened, 1.3-2 mm long, distally laciniate into 5-10 narrow segments. Capsules ca 3 mm broad, densely verrucose with cylindrical dark purplish processes; seeds plumply ovoid (nearly globose), slightly beaked apically, light brown, smooth (minutely foveolate), 1.6-1.8 mm long, the caruncle small (ca 0.1 mm long) or obsolete.
Home