a herb with woody base; stems slender, twining, sparingly branched, 4–8 ft. long, usually glabrous, sometimes sparingly armed with stinging bristles; leaves long-petioled, membranous, triangular-ovate, acute, base rather deeply widely to narrowly cordate, margin closely strongly toothed, 1 1/2–3 in. long, 1 1/4–2 1/2 in. wide, glabrous or nearly so above, beneath usually very sparingly beset with stinging bristles on the nerves; petiole sparingly bristly or glabrous, 1/2–1 lin. long; stipules spreading, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, glabrous, 1 1/2–2 lin. long; racemes terminal on the branches or leaf-opposed on the stem, with many male flowers solitary to their bracts above and 1–2 basal female flowers; peduncle and rhachis finely puberulous with sometimes a few long bristles; male bracts ovate-lanceolate, entire, glabrous or nearly so, 1 lin. long; female bracts ovate-lanceolate, entire, glabrous, 2 lin. long; male calyx 3-partite; lobes ovate, acute, glabrous; stamens 3; filaments longer than the anthers, incurved; female calyx 3-partite; lobes suborbicular, palmately 5–6-lobulate on each side, pubescent externally, glabrous within; lobules much shorter than the width of the accrescent indurated rhachis, in fruit 1/3 in. long; ovary puberulous and setose; styles 3, connate below in a short column, free above; capsule 3-coccous, 1/3 in. across; cocci almost glabrous, subglobose; seeds globose. null
