Tragia kirkiana Müll.Arg.

A climbing or trailing urticating perennial herb, monoecious; stems up to 3 m long from a woody rootstock, sparingly puberulous and/or setose to subglabrous. Stipules 4-6 mm long, lanceolate, ciliate, becoming strongly reflexed. Petiole 0.5-4(7) cm long. Leaf blade 3-12 x 0.6-5 cm, triangular-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, often hastate with two diverging lateral lobes at the base, acutely caudate-acuminate at the apex, sharply serrate to crenate-serrate on the margins, more coarsely so towards the base, deeply cordate, thinly chartaceous, 5-7-nerved from the base, subglabrous to sparingly pubescent or hispid above and beneath, and also setose along the midrib and main nerves beneath; lateral nerves in 4-6 pairs, scarcely prominent above, slightly so beneath. Inflorescences up to 19 cm long with a peduncle up to 15 cm long, although commonly much less, leaf-opposed, sometimes terminal on lateral shoots, comprised mostly of male flowers usually with 2 female flowers below; male bracts 1.5-2 mm long, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, eglandular; male bracteoles 1 mm long, lanceolate to linear; female bracts 4-5 x 2 mm, ovate to ovate-lanceolate; female bracteoles 2 mm long, elliptic. Male flowers: pedicels 1-1.5 mm long; buds subglobose; calyx lobes c. 1 x 1 mm, ovate-suborbicular, apiculate, subglabrous, greenish-yellow; stamens 3, 1 mm long, strongly incurved; pistillode trifid, the segments bifid. Female flowers: pedicels 0.5 mm long, extending to 3 mm in fruit; calyx lobes 3, 1.5 x 1.5 mm, accrescent to 7 x 7-8 mm, each lobe palmately 11-13-lobulate, the lobules linear-lanceolate, shorter than the width of the calyx-lobe rhachis, sparingly minutely puberulous, densely setose, greenish, the calyx-lobe rhachis obovate, subglabrous without, glabrous within, yellow-green, becoming slightly hardened within; ovary 1 mm in diameter, 3-lobed, densely setose on the keels, otherwise sparingly minutely puberulous to subglabrous, styles 3, 2-3 mm long, to 4 mm long in fruit, connate for up to half their length, subglabrous, stigmas smooth, recurved at the tips. Fruit 4 x 8 mm, strongly 3-lobed, the keels carinate, smooth, setose and hispid on the keels, otherwise sparingly minutely puberulous to subglabrous. Seeds 3-3.5 mm in diameter, subglobose, grey, flecked and mottled with dark brown, and with scattered fulvous circular patches densely fringed with white papillae.