Ti¥',° 
r 
 Povzouzta.] URTICACE. 131 
Ral; 
the uppermost often reduced to bracts ; stipules free, often persist- 
ent. lowers minute, usually moneecious, in 1-sexual or androgy- 
nous clusters sessile in the axils of the leaves or bracts, bracteoles 
small, individual florets pedicelled. Mate flowers: Perianth 4 or 
5-partite or-lobed, rarely 3-part,; lobes valvate, with concave 
or abruptly inflexed tips and transversely plicate bracts. Stamens 
4 or 5, rarely 3. Pistillode clavate or oblong. Ferm. flowers: 
Perianth tubular, often beaked ; mouth contracted, 2-4-toothed, 
Ovary included, stigma filiform, jointed at the top of the ovary, 
soon deciduous, ovule erect. Fruit a small achene with brittle 
shining pericarp, enclosed in but usually free from the mareescent 
perianth. Seed with membranous testa, albumen very scanty 
or none, cotyledons ovate.—Species about 50, in the tropics of the 
Old World. 
Lobes of male perianth usually 4, convex or 
gibbous on the back ; stamens 4, rarely 5 :— 
Leaves toothed—A small shrub ; . 1. P. viminea. 
Leaves quite entire—A perennial herb . 2, P. indica, 
Lobes of male perianth 5, abruptly inflexed 
above the middle ; stamens 5—A perennial 
herb : ; é 2 ; . 3. P. pentandra. 
1. P. viminea, Wedd. in DC. Prod. xvi, i, 228; Brandis For. 
Fl. 405 ; Ind- Trees 617 ; F. B. I. V, 581; Kanjilal For. Fi. 
(ed. 2), 281, . %mble Man. 658. Collett Fl. Siml. 467 ; Boehmeria. 
frondosa, Don Prod. 59. 
A small shrub with slender virgate pubescent or strigose branchlets. 
Leaves alternate, $-5 in. long, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, 
dentate, smooth or scaberulous on the upper surface, strigose or 
pubescent beneath and often with a grey or white tomentum ; base 
3-nerved ; petioles }-2 in. long, strigose. Perianth of male flowers 
4-partite ; segments convex en the back. Stamens 4. Fruit angled 
or obscurely margined. 
Debra Dun, in moist shady ravines. Flowers during the rainy season. 
DistriB.: Himalaya from the Sutlej eastwards to Sikkim, ascending 
to 7,000 ft. ; also in Burma, Assam and in the Malay Peninsula and 
Islands. The leaves are eaten in Sikkim by the Lepchas as a cooked 
vegetable. The bark yields a fibre suitable for making ropes. 
