URTICACEAE 181 
flexed in bud, the rudimentary pistil clavate or subglobose. Female flowers: 
Perianth segments 4, subequal. Ovary at length oblique. Achene oblique, 
flattened or compressed, seated on the perianth, usually fleshy. (In honor 
of F. L. de Laporte, a French entomologist.) 
Species about 50, tropical Asia, Africa, and Australia, a few in North 
America, 16 in the Philippines, a single one in our area. 
1. L. meyeniana (Walp.) Warb. Lipay, Lipang-calabao (Tag.). 
A dioecious shrub or small tree 3 to 5 m high, with numerous, minute, 
very irritating, stinging hairs. Leaves ovate to broadly elliptic-ovate, 20 
to 40 cm long, 10 to 22 em wide, entire, shortly acuminate, base somewhat 
cordate, the upper surface green, glabrous, the lower surface paler, rather 
densely and softly pubescent; petioles 20 cm long or less. Male inflores- 
cence axillary, paniculate, up to 20 em long. Flowers very numerous, 
crowded in small glomerules on the branches, the perianth-segments about 
2 mm long, the stamens about 3 mm long, somewhat spirally recurved. 
Female flowers at the ends of the branchlets of the inflorescence, 8 to 12, 
flabellately arranged, the individual inflorescences 5 to 7 mm in diameter. 
greenish. Fruit small, fleshy, pale-violet or white, 5 to 7 mm in diameter. 
In thickets, San Pedro Macati, fl. Aug.—Nov.; widely distributed in Luzon 
and Mindoro. Endemic. 
One of the worst of our nettle-like plants. The stinging hairs appear 
to be mostly along the margins of the leaves, and cause very painful blisters; 
the best remedy seems to be ammonia rubbed on the effected parts. 
3. BOEHMERIA Jacquin 
Shrubs, often with herbaceous branches, or small trees, with opposite or 
alternate, toothed, 8-nerved leaves, the stipules usually free. Flowers 
unisexual, in axillary, spiked, racemed, or panicled clusters. Male flowers: 
Perianth 3- to 5-lobed or parted. Stamens 3 to 5, inflexed in bud. Female 
flowers: Perianth tubular, 2- to 4-toothed, in fruit sometimes angled, 
winged, or swollen. Ovary included; stigma slender, persistent. Achene 
closely surrounded by the perianth, crustaceous, finally free. (In honor 
of G. R. Boehmer, a German botanist.) 
Species about 50, chiefly tropical, 9 in the Philippines, a single introduced 
one in our area. 
*1. B. NIVEA (L.) Gaudich. Ramie. 
An erect, branched, monoecious shrub, 1 to 2 m high, the branches and 
petioles hairy. Leayes all equal, long-petioled, broadly ovate, acuminate, 
coarsely toothed, the upper surface green, scabrid, with few scattered hairs, 
the lower surface very white, except the nerves, densely covered with ap- 
pressed matted white hairs. Flowers small, clustered, the clusters arranged 
in axillary panicles shorter than the petioles. (Fl. Filip. pl. 285.) 
Rarely cultivated in Manila, fl. in Nov. and probably in other months; 
occasional in Luzon and certainly introduced. Probably a native of China, 
now found in many tropical and subtropical countries in cultivation. 
4. FLEURYA Gaudichaud 
Annual erect herbs usually with few or many stinging hairs. Leaves 
alternate, toothed, 3-nerved. Flowers monoecious or dioecious, clustered, 
the clusters arranged in cymes or spikes. Male flowers: Sepals 4 or 5, 
ovate-lanceolate. Stamens 4 or 5, inflexed in bud. Rudimentary ovary 
