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Herbs, shrubs or vines, evergreen, perennial, monoecious or dioecious; stems and foliage without latex. Indumentum of simple, multicellular trichomes, often glandular, stinging trichomes present. Stipules entire or divided, inconspicuous, deciduous. Leaves alternate, petiolate, often lobate, palminerved, glands absent. Inflorescences terminal, leaf-opposed [cf. subfam. description-Editor] or axillary, racemose, solitary, uni-or bisexual and androgynous with flowers in bracteate clusters. Male flowers pedicellate; calyx lobes 3–5, valvate, ± equal; petals absent; disc absent; stamens 1–5, filaments ± free and often ± obsolete, anthers dorsifixed or basifixed, bilobate, thecae globose and longitudinally dehiscent; pistillodes minute or absent. Female flowers pedicellate; calyx lobes 3 or 6, imbricate, entire or variously divided; petals absent; disc absent; ovary 3-locular, ovules uniloculate; styles 3, connate at base, entire or bifid. Fruit capsular, trilobate, surface echinate, dehiscing septicidally into 3 bivalved cocci. Seeds globose; testa crustaceous; albumen fleshy; ecarunculate; cotyledons broad, flat.
Vines (suffruticose herbs or shrubs in extra-Panamanian species); monoecious; with stinging hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate or sessile, stipulate, entire to toothed or lobed. Inflorescences bisexual, racemiform, opposite the leaves or termi-nal on lateral branches; flowers 1-several at proximal nodes; bracts small, subtend-ing solitary flowers. Flowers apetalous; calyx 3-6-lobed; disc absent. Staminate flowers with articulate pedicels; calyx-lobes valvate; stamens 2-5 (-8), the filaments connate below, the anthers dehiscing longitudinally; pollen grains spheroidal, re-ticulate, 3-colpate with colpi operculate (rarely inaperturate); pistillode small or absent. Pistillate flowers pedicellate; calyx-lobes imbricate; ovary of usually 3 carpels, hispid with stinging hairs, sometimes with dorsal horns, the ovules 1 per locule, the styles united at least at base, unlobed, often papillate. Fruits capsular, the columella persistent, with 3 apical points; seeds subglobose, smooth or nearly so, ecarunculate, endosperm present, cotyledons foliaceous.
Monoecious; cal 3–6-lobed; pet none; disk small or none; stamens 2–5+; ovary with 3 locules and ovules; styles connate at base, recurved-spreading above, undivided; capsule 3-lobed; seeds without a caruncle; perennial herbs or half-shrubs, often twining, ± pubescent, often with some stinging hairs; infls slender, racemiform, lf-opposed or terminating leafy-bracteate axillary branches, with a few pistillate fls below and many staminate ones above. 100+, mostly tropical.
