Presumably perennial and apparently dioecious, rarely evidently monoecious herb, sometimes shrubby with juicy branches, reportedly with spreading or sprawling habit, up to 1.5 m. high.. Branches with yellowish-green bark, sometimes with large buds over the scars of fallen leaves, presumably for renewed growth; young branches glabrescent or glabrous, occasionally with stinging hairs up to 2 mm. long.. Leaves crowded towards the end of the branches; stipules narrowly triangular, fused only at base, 2–3 mm. long, glabrous, mostly green; petiole 3–8 cm. long, glabrous except for a few occasional stinging hairs; lamina ovate to narrowly ovate or elliptic, 4–12 cm. long, 2.5–5 cm. wide, base cuneate to rounded, margin serrate, on each side with 15–20 broad teeth up to ± 7 mm. long, apex acute to acuminate; lateral nerves (3–)4–7 pairs, basal pair reaching 8th–10th tooth from apex; upper surface with scattered stinging hairs and minute punctiform cystoliths, lower surface with stinging hairs on the nerves and more elongated cystoliths.. Inflorescences unisexual, rarely bisexual, paniculate, profusely branched from the base, peduncle indistinct, overall length of ♀ inflorescences 2–6 cm., ♂ ones 1.5–3 cm. long.. Male flowers in clusters up to 0.8 cm. in diameter, on pedicels ± 2 mm. long; perianth ± 2 mm. in diameter, 5-merous, tepals not corniculate and without stinging hairs.. Female flowers in small clusters on the branches; pedicels up to 0.4 mm. long, at first erect; tepals: the lateral pair up to 1 mm. long, the dorsal and ventral ones much smaller, subequal; ovary with filiform stigma ± 1 mm. long.. Achene ovoid, laterally compressed, ±1.5 mm. long, substipitate, almost completely covered by the accrescent lateral tepals, finally reflexed, on the sides with a ridge surrounding a small smooth area, dispersed with the perianth.. Fig. 5.
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