POUZOLZIA.I URTICACEM. 131 



the uppermost often reduced to bracts ; stipules free, often persist- 

 ent. Flowers minute, usually monoecious, in 1 -sexual or androgy- 

 nous clusters sessile in the axils of the leaves or bracts, bracteoles 

 small, individual florets pedicelled. MALE 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. FEM. flowers : 

 Perianth tubular, often beaked ; mouth contracted, 2-4-toothed, 

 Ovary included, stigina 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 inareescent 

 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 . . . . . . . 3. P. pentandra. 



1. P. viminea, Wedd. in DC. Prod, zvi, i, 228 ; Brandis For, 

 Fl. 405 ; Ind- Trees 617 ; F. B. I. F, 581 ; Kanjilal For. FL 

 (ed. 2), 381, C amble Man. 658. Collett Fl. Siml. 467 ; Bcehmeria. 

 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 <*f ten with a grey or white tomentum ; base 

 3-nerved ; petioles J-2 in. long, strigose. Perianth of male flowers 

 4-partite ; segments convex on the back. Stamens 4. Fruit angled 

 or obscurely margined. 



Dehra 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. 



