URTICACE^. 125 



ORDER LXXL— URTIOACEiE. 



Herbs, shrubs, or trees, with alternate or opposite, generally 

 scabrous or hairy, leaves, the hairs sometimes stinging. Stij)ules 

 more or less conspicuous, usually deciduous in the arborescent genera, 

 rarely wanting. Flowers variously disj^osed, usually dioecious or monoe- 

 cious, rarely perfect. Perianth single, commonly herbaceous, regular, 

 free from the ovary. Stamens as many as the lobes of the calyx, 

 more rarely fewer or more numerous, inserted in the bases of the calyx 

 lobes and opposite to them. Ovary free from the calyx, 1-celled, rarely 

 2-celled ; ovules 1 in each cell of the ovary, anatropous or amphy- 

 tropous, pendulous or suspended; style single or 2 when the ovary 

 is 2-celled. Fruit a 1 -seeded achenium or samara. Seed solitary, 

 with or without albumen. 



Sub-Order I.— URTICEiE. 



Flowers monoecious or dioecious or polygonous, not arranged on 

 a fleshy clinanth nor spadix. Filaments transversely wrinkled and 

 incurved in bud, spreading with elasticity when the pollen is ready 

 to be shed. Ovary 1-celled, with a single suspended orthotropous 

 ovule; style or stigma 1, simple. Fruit an achene; embryo straight, 

 in the axis of albumen ; radicle remote from the hilum. 



GENUS L—V ARIETARIA. Toumef. 



Flowers polygamous. Perfect flowers with the perianth 4- or 

 5 -partite, the segments nearly equal : stamens as many as the segments 

 of the perianth; ovary free; style very short; stigma multifid. Uni- 

 sexual flowers difi'ering from the perfect ones only by the ovary being 

 abortive in the male flowers, or the stamens abortive in the female 

 flowers. Achene enclosed in the tube of the perianth, which often 

 elongates after flowering. 



Herbs or undershrubs with the leaves alternate or opposite. Flowers 

 axillary, in cymose-fasciculate sessile clusters, contained in a 2-leaved 

 involucre, each half of which is multipartite, and consists of the bracts 

 of half of a contracted cyme ; between the 2 halves of the involucre 

 there is a flower, which is usually female. Plants glabrous or hairy, 

 but the hairs are never stingmg. 



The name of this genus of plants is derived from the word paries, a wall, because it 

 grows on old walls. 



