244 OXXIIIp. URTICACE% (Rendle). | Obetia. 
2. OBETIA, Gaud.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 382. 
Flowers dicecious in small cymose clusters on a much branched 
axillary panicle. Male flowers: Bud depressed globose. Perianth 
divided into 5 concave lobes which are valvate in bud; stamens 5, 
with a central ovary-rudiment. Female flowers: Perianth with 4 
broad segments, an outer smaller and an inner larger pair, increasing 
in fruit. Ovary ovoid, bearing a shortly penicillate stigma on the 
upper oblique portion; ovule erect from the base. Achene com- 
pressed, ovoid to orbicular, partially enveloped in the thinly mem- 
branous persistent perianth. Seed-coat membranous, conforming to 
the thin pericarp ; albumen scanty ; cotyledons broad, rounded.— 
Shrubs or small trees with thick branches, the younger portion bear- 
ing stinging hairs. Leaves alternate, petioled, simple, often palmately 
or pinnately lobed, base cordate, margin toothed or crenate, softly 
hairy especially on the under face. Stipules lateral, foliaceous, 
persistent. Bracts hnear. 
Species 5, in Madagascar and Tropical Africa. 
Leaves deeply pinnatifid; eastern... hs ... lL. O. pinnatifida. 
Leaves cordate, sometimes partially lobed ; western... 2. O. carruthersiana. 
1. O. pinnatifida, Baker in Journ. Linn. Soc. xx. 264. A bush 
or small tree up to 20 ft. high, with a simple fleshy stem and 
the habit of an unbranched Araliad or a Carica with a perennial 
crown (Dawe and Evans), or with ultimate’ branchlets as thick 
as a man’s little finger, with leaves crowded at the top (Baker). 
Leaves stalked, ovate-cordate in general outline but deeply pinna- 
tifid, with the primary segments again pinnately lobed, apex of leaf 
and segments long-acuminate, base deeply cordate, margin coarsely. 
crenate, up to about a foot wide and nearly as long, upper face dark 
green, hispidulous and with stinging hairs on the prominent veins 
and sparsely scattered over the surface, lower face matted with a 
whitish velvety tomentum ; petioles stout, 3-6 in. long, shorter than 
the blade, tomentose and beset with deflexed stinging hairs. 
Stipules large, persistent, ovate, shortly acuminate, brown, reaching 
1 in. in length. Male panicle (one only seen) much smaller than the 
female, about 4 in. long with short branches bearing the densely 
clustered flowers ; flower-buds about 14 lin. in diam. ; perianth- 
segments hispidulous, sometimes with the characteristic stinging 
hairs on the back. Female panicle dense, very much branched, half- 
a-foot or more long, the short peduncles and slender branches sparsely 
armed with deflexed stinging hairs. Accrescent perianth-lobes 
broadly elliptic to orbicular, greenish-brown or pale brown, the larger 
pair about 1 lin. broad. Achene broadly ovoid, greenish or pale 
brown, about 4 lin. long, narrowly winged, faces obscurely warted.— 
Engl. in Mildbraed, Wiss. Ergebn. Deutsch. Zentr.-Afr. Exped. 1907— 
8, 1. 190, and in Engl. Jahrb. li. 423, fig. 1. 
