Girardinia.] CXXXVI, URTICACEE. (J. D. Hooker.) 991 
furrowed, pubescent hispid or hirsute. Leaves 4-12 in. long, often as broad, upper 
often palmately 3-5-lobed ; petiole 4-6 in. Male cymes loosely paniculate, shorter 
than the leaves, flowers subsessile hispid; fruiting cymes elongate, lobulate (14 in. long 
and pendulous in Mishmi specimens); perianths hispid. Achene broadly ovate or 
subcordate, punctate, black, style persistent.— The following are varieties. 
Var. G. PALMATA, Gaud. l. c. 498; leaves hirsute beneath, stipules large usually 
cordate, fruiting cymes elongate. Wedd. in DO.1.c.101. G. Leschenaultiana, Dene, 
HE Wedd. Monogr. 165. Urtica palmata, Leschen. U. acerifolia, Zenker Pl, 
ad. dec, i. t, 3, 4.—Nilghiri Mts. Ceylon, alt. 5-6000 ft. 
ar. G. ZEYLANICA, Dene. Lc. 152; leaves pinnatifidly lobed, stipules broadly 
Teate, cymes in reniform clusters, stinging hairs slender, Wedd. Monogr. Urtic. 
167, and in DC. J. c, 101; Miquel Fl. Ind. Bat. i. ii. 233. G. hibiscifolia, Miquel 
wae Jungh. i. 32. Urtica zeylanica, Burm. Thes. Zeyl. 232. U. heterophylla, 
git Te. t. 687.—Decean Peninsula and Ceylon. 
29. PILEA, Lindl. 
Herbs, rarely undershrubs. Leaves in opposite equal or unequal pairs, 
entire or serrate, 3-nerved, very rarely penninerved; stipules connate into 
one Intrapetiolar. Flowers moneecious or dioecious, minute, in axillary long 
or short peduncled dichotomously branched cymes; bracts small or 0. 
ALE FL, Sepals 2-4, free or connate in a cup, often gibbous or horned at the 
back, Stamens 2-4.  Pistillode conic or oblong. Fem. rr. Sepals 3, 
rarely 4, very small and unequal, dorsal longest, sometimes gibbous or 
hooded. Staminodes minute, or of scales, or 0. Ovary straight; stigma 
Sessile, Penicillate; ovule erect. Achene ovoid or oblong, compressed, 
Mbranous or crustaceous, embraced or not, and at the base only, by the 
Sepals. Seed erect, albumen very scanty, cotyledons broad.—Species abont 
» Tropical (none Australian). 
I have been b»ffled in m ts to correlate all the Indian species of Pilea, as 
named by Weddell (evidently im glent haste) in the Hookerian Herbarium, with the 
“criptions in his Monograph of Urticacew and in De Candolle’s Prodromus, and am 
low him satisfactorily in respect of their diagnoses, nomenclature and 
m The genus is an exceptionally difficult one, and I am not satis e h 
sown results, Of the characters most relied on, that of moncecious or icecious 
of little avail, for the sume species may be unisexual, or have male and fem. cymes or 
i . and unisexual eymes on the sume individual. Of the commoner 
Species the leaves are very variable in size and form, but there is usually a mani ced 
n those with large deep serratures, and those with small an A sha low 
impossible to say from dried specimens whether the stipule rem 
zx bed or have fullen away. The length of the peduncle of the cyme, and the 
the cymes of both sexes are so variable that it is of no use for xac 
o Enostic purposes. The male sepals vary as to the number in each flower t nat have 
dime Eibbosities or spurs, as does the length of these spurs. There is an d prions 
na rox ^6 between the female perianth of 3 subequal orbicular sepals, and that of one 
8 en" Concave dorsal and two small lateral sepals or lobes. All of the Ln ian 
engi have fleshy staminodes on the fem. perianth -lobes, which ee 
a Me ened, inflexed, and by recurving elastically discharge the achenes. „Tho achenes 
the goo characters, but they are extremely minute, usually about yo d those with 
moot, có definite line to be drawn between those with granulate an 
aces, l l 
jare no materials that enable me to compare, the ny with the Malay Island 
> and therefore have but sparingly cited Malayan syno 2n . 
Linn Y^ little p. muscosa, Lindl. (P microphylia, Liebm., Urtica microphylla, 
the n), the “ gunpowder plant" (so called from the cloud of pollen lisc arge 0 
Suthers when the plant is shaken), a common S. American species, has been in- 
