An erect or suberect urticating perennial herb up to 60 cm tall, usually much less, monoecious or polygamo-dioecious; stems several from a woody rootstock, puberulous to tomentose and stinging-setose.Stipules 3–4 mm long, lanceolate, puberulous.Petioles 0.2–2 cm long.Leaf blades 3–7 × 0.3–1.5 cm, 1–3.5 cm wide at the base, usually narrowly lanceolate and often strongly 3-lobed at the base, acute to subacute or obtuse at the apex, median lobe entire or serrate or crenate-serrate on the margins towards the apex, lateral lobes coarsely serrate or dentate, truncate or shallowly wide-cordate at the base, thinly chartaceous, 5–7-nerved from the base, sparingly pubescent on both surfaces and sparingly to densely setose along the midrib and main nerves on both surfaces; lateral nerves in 4–8 pairs, scarcely prominent above, slightly so beneath.Inflorescences up to 8.5 cm long, on peduncles up to 5.5 cm long, terminal and/or leaf-opposed, usually comprised of male flowers with 2–3 female flowers below, rarely all male or all female; male bracts 2 mm long, elliptic-lanceolate; male bracteoles 1 mm long, linear; female bracts 3 mm long, ovate; female bracteoles resembling the male bracts.Male flowers: pedicels 1 mm long; buds 3-lobed to subglobose; calyx lobes 1.5 × 1 mm, ovate, subacute, subglabrous, yellow; stamens 3, less than 1 mm long; pistillode 3-lobed, the lobes truncate.Female flowers: pedicels 1 mm long, extending to up to 4 mm in fruit; calyx lobes 3, sometimes with 1–4 small additional lobules, 2 × 2 mm, accrescent to 7 × 8 mm, each lobe deeply pectinately 9–15-lobulate, the lobules linear-lanceolate, ± equalling the width of the calyx-lobe rhachis, sparingly puberulous and densely setose, green, the calyx-lobe rhachis ± ovate, sparingly puberulous without, glabrous within, green at the base and otherwise yellowish without, whitish and somewhat woody at length within; ovary 1.5 mm in diameter, 3-lobed, setose; styles 3, 2–3 mm long, suberect, connate to about halfway, sparingly pubescent at the base, otherwise glabrous, stigmas smooth, ± recurved at the tips.Fruit 0.6 × 1 cm, 3-lobed, smooth, sparingly puberulous, setose on the keels.Seeds 3.5 mm in diameter, subglobose, pale grey, sparingly flecked with chestnut-brown, and with scattered circular yellow patches fringed with white papillae.