602 URTICACE CELTIS 
URTICA 
pistillate usually solitary, slender-peduncled : calyx-segments linear-oblong, 
deciduous: drupes globose and purple or nearly black when mature, some- 
times orange, 4-5 lines in diameter. On dry soil, [dahoand eastward. 
C. reticulata Torr. A shrub or small tree 4-20 feet high, with bright 
brown rough bark, the twigs pubescent: leaves thick, strongly reticulated, 
rough-glandular above, ovate or narrower, 1-4 inches long, serrate, acute 
or somewhatacuminate, obliquely cordate at base, on short petioles: stami- 
nate flowers numerous; pistillate usually solitary, slender-peduncled: 
calyx-seg ments ovate-lanceolate or oblong, deciduous: drupe globose 2-3 
lines long, black when mature. aAiong streams eastern Oregon to Brit. 
Columbia and the Rocky Mountains. 
Orper LXXXII URTICACEZ Reichenb. Consp. 83. (1820.). 
Herbs, rarely shrubs with watery juice, alternate or opposite 
mostly stipulate simple leaves and small greenish dicecious, 
monoecious or polygamous flowers variously clustered. Calyx 
2-5 cleft or of distinct sepals. Stamens as many as lobes of 
the calyx or sepals and opposite them, the filaments inflexed and 
anthers reversed in the bud, straightening at anthesis. Ovary 
superior, l-celled: style simple: stigma capitate and penicillate. 
Ovule solitary, erect or ascending. Fruit an achene. Embryo 
straight, in oily albumen. 
1 Urtica Herbs with opposite leaves and stinging hairs. 
2 Parietaria Herbs with alternate leaves without stinging hairs. 
1 URTICA L. Sp. 983. (NeErtr.Es.) 
Herbs with 4-angled sulcate stems, stinging hairs, opposite 
leaves with distinct lateral stipules and small flowers clustered 
in axillary geminate racemes, spikes or loose heads without bracts 
Staminate flowers on jointed pedicels with 4 sepals, 4 stamens and 
a rudimentary cup-shaped ovary: the pistillate with 4 sepals, the 
4 outer small and spreading, the inner erect, becoming membran- 
aceous and enclosing the flattened ovate achene. Stigma sessile, 
capitate, tufted. : 
U. holosericea Nutt. Pl. Gambel. 183. Stems stout, 4-8 feet high, 
usually simple ashy-scurfy and sparingly armed with stinging bristles: 
leaves ovate-lanceolate, 2-6 inches long, very cvarsely serrate, acuminate 
green above, whitish beneath with a dense minute pubescence, rounded 
or subcordate at base, all petioled: stipules membranaceous, 6 lines long, 
oblong, obtuse or acute : staminate flowers in loose slender diffuse panicles, 
nearly equalling the leaves: pistillate panicles denser and shorter: inner 
sepals ovate, densely hispid 4 line long, about equalling the broadly ovate 
ache: About springs and along streams in the dry interior regions, 
Washington to California and Utah. 
U. Breweri Watson Proc. Am. Acad. x, 348. Grayish with a short: 
somewhat hispid pubescence ur nearly glabrous: stem stout, 4-6 feet high, 
stipules membranaceous, oblong-lanceolate: leaves thin, finely pubescent 
soon glabrate, or roughish above, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 2-6 inches 
long, acute or slightly cordate at base, coarsely serrate, on slender petioles, 
1-3 inches long or more: flowers in short open panicles scarcely exceeding 
the petioles: sepals obovate or rounded, obtuse, minutely hispid, nearly a 
line long and nearly twice longer than the broadly ovate achene. Along 
streams, Southern Oregon to California and Colorado. 
