a herb with woody base; stems slender, prostrate or twining, 2–3 ft. long, much branched; branches slender, puberulous and sparingly armed with stinging bristles; leaves short-petioled, membranous, triangular-ovate, acute, base rather shallow-cordate, margin closely toothed, 1–1 1/4 in. long, 1/2– 2/3 in. wide, with a few stinging bristles on the nerves on both surfaces, otherwise glabrous; petiole puberulous and sparingly bristly, 1/3 in. long; stipules lanceolate, reflexed, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, glabrous; racemes terminal on the branches or leaf-opposed, peduncled, with many male flowers above and 1–2 basal female flowers; peduncle and rhachis puberulous and very sparingly bristly; male bracts lanceolate, their margin entire, finely puberulous, 1 lin. long; female bracts ovate, acute, their margin toothed, 1 1/2–2 lin. long; pedicels in both sexes very short, puberulous, solitary to their bracts; male calyx 3-partite; lobes ovate, acute, glabrous; stamens 3; filaments hardly longer than the anthers, incurved; female calyx usually 3-partite, with occasionally a fourth smaller lobe added; lobes suborbicular, palmately 4–5-lobulate on each side; lobules lanceolate, about as long as the diameter of the somewhat accrescent subcoriaceous rhachis, 1/4 in. long; ovary densely setose; styles 3, very shortly connate at the base; capsule 3-coccous, 1/4 in. across; cocci almost glabrous, subglobose; seeds globose, grey with bright brown blotches. null