— Grrarprera.] URTICACE2. 125. 
Fem. flowers. Perianth tubular, ventricose, 2-3-toothed, at length 
splitting on one side and spathe-like. Ovary straight; stigma 
subulate, papillose, ovule erect. Fruit a broad compressed achene, 
seated on the perianth, pericarp rather thick. Seed with a mem- 
branous testa, albumen scanty, cotyledons broad.—Species 7, in 
Trop. Asia and Africa. 
G. heterophylla, Dene. in Jacquem. Voy. Bot. 151, t. 153 ; Brandis 
For. Fl. 404; F. B. I. V, 550; Kanjilal For. Fl. (ed. 2) 384; 
Gamble Man. 656 ; Collett Fi. Siml. 462, fig. 149; Watt Comm. 
Prod. Ind. 161. Urtica heterophylla, Walld. ; Roxb. Fi. Ind. iii, 
586.—Vern. Bichua, chichru, kushki. 
A co'rse erect perennial herb 4-10 ft. high, closely beset with slender 
rigid sharp stinging hairs. Leaves 4-12 in. long and often as broad, 
broadly ovate, acuminate; base cordate or truncate; margins 
usually sharply and falcately dentate, rarely entire ; under surface 
usually glabrous except for the bristly stinging hairs on the nerves ; 
petioles 3-6 in. long, densely armed with stinging hairs ; stipules 
about } in. long, ovate. Flowers small, monoecious, densely crowded. 
Mate flowers in long slender often panicled spikes. Perianth 4-. 
partite. Stamens usually 4. Pistillode globose. FRM. flowers 
crowded in simple or panicled spikes and usually forming a stout 
densely bristly inflorescence up to 6 in. long or more. Perianth 
+; in. long, 3-lobed, splitting when the fruit ripens ; lobes triangular,, 
acute. Style filiform. Achenes } in. long, flat, obliquely ovate. 
Abundant in Dehra Dun and eastwards along the Sub-Himalayan tract. 
Flowers during the rainy season. Distrrs.: Sub-tropical and temp. 
Himalaya from Kashmir to Sikkim, up to 7,000 ft.; also in Assam 
and the Khasia Hills, extending to Burma, Java and China. The 
stems yield a strong silk-like fibre which is used for making twine 
or ropes, and sometimes (in Sikkim) a coarse kind of cloth is made 
from it. The leaves are often used as a vegetable by the village 
people of the Western Himalaya. 
Var. zeylanica, F. B. J. 1. c. 551. G. zeylanica, Dene. I. c. 152 ; Prain 
Beng. Pl. 961 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb. ii, 633. Urtica zeylanica, Burm. 
—tLeaves pinnatifidly lobed; margins rather bluntly serrate ; 
stipules broadly cordate; female inflorescence (in fruit) densely 
compacted into oblong or reniform masses. This variety occurs 
in the dry south-western hilly portion of the area of this flora and 
extends through Central India and the Deccan to Travancore and 
Ceylon. It is often known as the Nilgiri nettle, which name, however, 
