Tragia volubilis L.

Twining vine; stems and foliage more or less densely covered with stinging hairs. Leaves thin; petioles 0.5-2.5 cm long; stipules ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, greenish, ca 2-4 mm long; blades elliptic-oblong, 2.5-7 cm long, 0.7-2.5 cm broad, above sparsely and beneath more densely beset with stinging hairs, mostly 5-veined at base, the base subcordate to distinctly cordate, the margins sharply serrate (teeth 8-20 on a side), the apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescences opposite the leaves (sometimes apparently axillary),becoming ca 1-2.5 cm long, usually with a single basal 9 flower, remaining nodes (ca 15-25) with d' flowers; 9 bracts mostly trifid, d' bracts entire. Staminate flowers with minutely hispidulous pedicels ca 1.1-1.6 mm long, articulate somewhat below the middle (stumps remaining after dehiscence of flower shorter than to as long as the subtending bract); calyx-lobes 3, elliptic, acute, 0.8-0.9 mm long, 0.5-0.6 mm broad; stamens 2 [in Panamanian specimens], the filaments thick and fleshy, free, shorter than the anthers, the anthers elliptic, 0.3-0.4 mm long. Pistillate flowers with hispidulous pedicels which elongate greatly in fruit to (1-)1.5-2.5 cm long; calyx-lobes 6, ? biseriate, lanceolate, acute, greenish, reflexed in fruit, increasing from ca 1.2 to ca 1.8 mm in length; ovary densely hispidulous with stinging hairs, the styles basally connate into a column 0.4-1.2 mm high, the tips spreading or usually tightly inrolled. Capsules hispid with stinging hairs, dimorphic, some of the normal 3-coccous type and ca 6 mm in diam, others zygomorphic, with 2 prominent dorsal horns up to 4 mm long, the columella slender, apically dilated into 3 flattened blades, 1.6-1.8 mm long; seeds round, ellipsoid, grayish with reddish-brown ridges (alveolate-reticulate, the color contrast lost in age), ca 2.5 mm long.