Shrubs or small trees; monoecious or dioecious. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate; blades pinnately veined, entire or dentate. Inflorescences axillary clusters or racemes; bracts eglandular, subtending solitary flowers. Staminate flowers pedicellate or subsessile; calyx-lobes 3-5, valvate; petals absent; disc absent (or confounded with the fleshy receptacle); stamens ca 24-60, the filaments free, glabrous, the anthers extrorse, dehiscing longitudinally, the anther-connective with an apical tuft of stinging hairs; pollen grains ellipsoid, tectate, inaperturate. Pistil-late flowers pedicellate; calyx-lobes 5-6, narrow, ? imbricate; petals and disc absent; ovary of 3 carpels, pubescent (at least in part) with stinging hairs, the ovules 1 per locule, the styles connate below, spreading above, undivided, strongly papillose. Fruits capsular, valves ? armed with stinging hairs; seeds rounded, ecarunculate.
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