Sida urens L.

Herb, sometimes suffrutex, the stem slender, usually erect, rarely procumbent, up to 2.5 m high, branched often from the base, rather sparsely hirsute with long, patent, mostly simple or sometimes few-armed, yellowish hairs, and often also with shorter stellate hairs. Leaves with the petiole 1.4-5 cm long, more or less densely hirsute, the stipules subulate, ca 3-4 mm long, hirsute, caducous; blade ovate, sometimes narrowly so, cordate at the base, gradually long-acuminate at the apex, serrate at the margin, up to 10 cm long and 5 cm broad, thin, nearly concolorous, 5-to 9(sub-li)-palminerved, more or less strigose-pubescent on both sides, the indumentum denser on the prominulous primary veins beneath, the hairs simple to few-armed or stellate. Flowers mostly in axillary or subterminal, few-to several-flowered glomerules, those toward the apex of the branches and branchlets often simulating spike-like inflorescences, the individual flowers subsessile to short-pedicellate; calyx campanulate, subplicate-5-angulate, ca 8 mm long, membra-nous, 10-ribbed, yellowish-hispid or subsetose on veins and along margins, moderately accrescent, the lobes broadly triangular, from the base gradually long-acuminate, ca 4.5-5 mm long and 4-4.5 mm broad at the base; petals broadly obovate-cuneate, oblique, sometimes inconspicuously so, usually emarginate at the apex, ca 7(9) mm long and 5(6) mm broad, pale buff, salmon, white or yellow, often reddish at the base, very minutely hyaline-puberulus at the claw; androecium ca 5 mm long, the staminal tube ca 2.5 mm long, sparsely hispidulous, the fila-ments relatively few; styles ca 4 mm long, connate basally. Mericarps 5, trigonous, 2-2.5 mm long, muticous to very shortly and bluntly 2-aristate at the apex, char-taceous, glabrous or somewhat puberulus near the apex, dorsally nearly smooth, laterally faintly striate, dehiscent apically; seeds trigonous, ca 1.5 mm long, gla-brous but minutely puberulus around the hilum.