Shrub to 3 m high; monoecious; branches with spreading pubescence. Leaves membranous; petioles tomentulose, mostly 2-8 cm long; stipules linear-lanceolate, tip subulate, 7-17 mm long, glabrous; blades ovate to ovate-lanceolate, mostly 5-18 cm long, 2.5-9 cm broad, glabrate except for tufts of hairs in axils of veins beneath and with minute reddish glands (disappearing in age), 5-7 veined at base but pin-nately veined above (with ca 5-7 additional lateral veins on each side above the basal ones), the base obtuse to rounded or subcordate, the margins rather coarsely serrate (teeth ca 25-40 on a side), the apex acuminate. Inflorescences axillary, spicate; 9 spikes mostly 1-bracted (and then simulating solitary flowers), occasion-ally 2-bracted (rarely more), conspicuously stalked, the peduncle 10-20 mm long, lengthening to 40 mm in fruit; male spikes at more proximal axils, ca 2-7 cm long, loosely flowered, ca 1.5 mm across, the peduncles 1-2 cm long. Pistillate flowers solitary, enveloped by subtending bract, sessile; bracts ca 3 X 6 mm at anthesis increasing to 4 X 9-10 mm in fruit, cut ca 1/2 way in 13-17 lanceolate acuminate lobes ca 1.5-2 mm long (lobes becoming more or less deltoid in fruit), strigose-hispidulous; ovary densely hispidulous-tomentose, the styles free, erect, nearly glabrous, ca 4-5 mm long, divided in the distal % into 10-12 subulate-tipped segments. Capsules verruculose-hispidulous; seeds ellipsoidal, slightly beaked, grayish-brown, smooth, ca 1.5-1.7 mm long, the caruncle obscure.
Dry to wet thickets or rather thin forest, sometimes in pine forest; at elevations up to 2,100 metres.
Home