Girardinia.] cxxxvi. URTICACE^E. (J. D. Hooker.) 551 



furrowed, pubescent hispid or hirsute. Leaves 4-12 in. long, often as broad, upper 

 often palmately 3-5-lobed; petiole 4-6 in. Male cymes loosely paniculate, shorter 

 than the Irnvos, flowers subsessile hispid ; fruiting cymes elongate, lobulate (14 in. lon 

 and pendulous in Mishmi specimens); perianths hispid. Achene broadly ovate or 

 subcordate, punctate, black, style persistent. The following are varieties. 



Var. G. PALMATA, Gaud. I. c. 498; leaves hirsute beneath, stipules large usually 

 cordate, fruiting cymes elongate. Wedd. in DC. L c. 101. G. Lcschenaultiana, Dene. 

 I. c. ; Wedd. Monogr. 165. Urtica palmata, Leschen. U. acerifolia, Zenker PL 

 Ind. dec. i. t. 3, 4. Nilghiri Mts. Ceylon, alt. 5-fiOOO ft. 



Var. G. ZEYLANICA, Dene. I. c. 152 ; leaves pinnatifidly lobed, stipules broadly 

 cordate, cymes in reniform clusters, stinging hairs slender. Wedd. Monogr. Urtic. 

 167, and in DC. I. c. 101 ; Miquel Fl. Ind. Sat. i. ii. 233. G. hibiscifolia, Miquel 

 Plant. Jungh. \. 32. Urtica zeylanica, Burm. TJies. Zeyl. 232. U. heterophylla, 

 Wight Iv. t. 687. Deccan Peninsula and Ceylon. 



29. PILEA, Lindl. 



Herbs, rarely undershrubs. Leaves in opposite equal or unequal pairs, . 

 entire or serrate, 3-nerved, very rarely penninerved ; stipules connate into 

 one intrapetiolar. Flowers monoecious or dioecious, minute, in axillary long 

 or short peduncled dichotomou^ly branched cymes ; bracts small or 0. 

 MALE FL. Sepals 2-4, free or connate in a cup, often gibbous or horned at the 

 back. Stamens 2-4. Pistillode conic or oblong. FEM. PL. Sepals 3, 

 rarely 4, very small and unequal, dorsal longest, sometimes gibbous or 

 hooded. Staminodes minute, or of scales, or 0. Ovary straight ; stigma 

 sessile, penicillate ; ovule erect. Achene ovoid or oblong, compressed, 

 membranous or crustaceous, embraced or not, and at the base only, by the 

 sepals. Seed erect, albumen very scanty, cotyledons broad. Species about 

 160, Tropical (none Australian). 



I have been baffled in my attempts to correlate all the Indian species of Pilea, as 

 named by Weddell (evidently in great haste) in the Hookerian Herbarium, with the 

 descriptions in his Monograph of Urticacese and in De Candolle's Prodromus, and am 

 unable to follow him satisfactorily in respect of their diagnoses, nomenclature and 

 classification. The genus is an exceptionally difficult one, and I am not satisfied with 

 my own results. Of the characters most relied on, that of monoecious or dioecious is 

 ^of little avail, for the s^me species may be unisexual, or have male and fern, cymes or 

 even androgynous and unisexual cymes on the same individual. Of the commoner 

 species the leaves are very variable in size and form, but there is usually a marked 

 distinction between those with large deep serratures, and those with small and shallow 

 ones. It is often impossible to say from dried specimens whether the stipules are un- 

 developed or have fallen away. The length of the peduncle of the cyme, and the 

 sizt' and form of the cymes of both sexes are so variable that it is of no use for exact 

 diagnostic purposes. The male sepals vary as to the number in each flower that have 

 dorsal gibbosities or spurs, as does the length of these spurs. There is an obvious 

 difference between the female perianth of 3 subequal orbicular sepals, and that of one 

 narrow concave dorsal and two small lateral sepals or lobes. All of the Indian 

 species have fleshy staminodes on the fern, perianth -lobes, which in some are 

 lengthened, inflexed, and by recurving elastically discharge the achenes. The achenes 

 afford good characters, but they are extremely minute, usually about -^ in. long, and 

 there is no definite line to be drawn between those with granulate and those with 

 smooth faces. 



I have no materials that enable me to compare the Indian with the Malay Island 

 species, and therefore have but sparingly cited Malayan synonyms. 



The little P. muscosa, Lindl. (P. microphylla, Liebm., Urtica microphylla, 

 Linn.), the "gunpowder plant" (so called from the cloud of pollen discharged from 

 the anthers when the plant is shaken), a common S. American species, has been in- 



