VILLEBRUNEA. ] URTICACE®. 133 
10. VILLEBRUNEA, Gaud.; Fl. Brit. Ind. V, 589. 
Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, petioled, entire or crenulate 
penninerved or 3-nerved at the base; stipules partially connate 
intrapetiolar. Flowers dicecious, densely capitately  fascicled, 
fascicles solitary or laxly cymose; bracts small, often linear ; 
bracteoles cup-shaped, sometimes connate. Mate flowers: / eri- 
anth 4-partite ; segments ovate, acute, valvate or slightly imbricate, 
subglobose in bud. Stamens 4; Pistillode’ obovate—clavate. 
Fem. flowers. Perianth tubular, adnate to the ovary; mouth 
narrowed, minutely toothed. Ovary erect, covered by the ad- 
herent perianth; stigma sessile, small or discoid, ovule erect. 
Fruit a crustaceous achene, adnate to the slight fleshy perianth. 
Seed straight, often acuminate, testa membranous, albumen usually 
scanty, cotyledons broadly ovate.—Species about 8, in India and 
the Malay Archipelago extending to Japan. 
V. frutescens, Blume Mus. Bot. Lugd. ii, 168 ; Brandis For. 
Fil. 406 ; Ind. Trees 610; F. B. I. V, 590 ; Watt ¢.D., Kanjilal 
For. Fl. (ed. 2), 382; Gamble Man. 659; Collett Fl. Siml. 468. 
Urtica frutescens, Rozb. Fl. . wt, 589. 
A shrub or small tree with slender pubescent branches ; bark dark-grey, 
rough. Leaves membranous, 4-8 in. long, elliptic, oblong lanceolate 
or ovate, rarely suborbicular, acuminate or ca: date, crenulate except 
towards base ; base rounded or subcordate, 3-nerved to the middle 
and penninerved above, sparsely plose on the upper surface, grey 
or white beneath with woolly hairs, or glabrate; petioles 4-4 in. 
long; stipules $ in., lanceolate, pubescent. Flowers in subsessile: 
clusters or short cymes in the axils of the previous year’s leaves. 
Fruit of many minute dry ovoid nuts, surrounded at the base by 
the fleshy perianth and bracteoles. 
Dehra Dun, often found by the sides of water-courses, and eastwards 
along the sub-Himalayan tracts of Rohilkhand and N. Oudh. Dis- 
TRIB. : Outer Himalayan ranges from the Sutlej to Sikkim, ascending 
to 5,000 ft.; also in Assam and on the Khasia Hills, and on the 
Nilgiris in 8S. India, extending to China and Japan. The fibre is 
used for ropes. 
11. DEBREGEASIA, Gaud.; Fl. Brit. Ind. V, 590. 
Shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate, petioled, serrate-cranate, 
3-nerved at the base ; stipules connate, intrapetiolar, 2-fid. F lowers 
