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An erect, weakly urticating, branched perennial herb up to 50 cm tall, monoecious; stems one or more arising from a woody rootstock, the indumentum puberulous and with a mixture of long hairs and stinging bristles.Stipules 3–4 mm long, oblong-lanceolate, puberulous.Petiole 1–3 mm long, or leaves subsessile.Leaf blade 2–5 × 0.3–1.5 cm, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, acute at the apex, shallowly and somewhat remotely serrate-denticulate on the margins, rounded-cuneate at the base, thinly chartaceous, sparingly pubescent and setose on the upper surface, more evenly so beneath, 3–5-nerved from the base, with the inner pair of nerves running ± one-third the length of the blade; tertiary nerves reticulate; lateral nerves in 3–5 pairs, not or scarcely prominent above, fairly prominent beneath.Inflorescences up to 10 cm long, the peduncle up to 3 cm long; male bracts 2–2.5 mm long, elliptic, subentire; male bracteoles 1 mm long, linear-lanceolate; female bracts 2–2.5 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, sometimes shallowly toothed; female bracteoles resembling the male bracts.Male flowers: pedicels less than 0.5 mm long; buds turbinate-subglobose; calyx lobes 1 × 1 mm, suborbicular, cucullate, sparingly pubescent to glabrous, yellow; stamens 3, 0.5 mm long; pistillode 3-lobed, the lobes rounded.Female flowers: pedicels 0.5 mm long, extending to 3–5 mm long in fruit; calyx lobes 6, 1.5 × 1.5 mm, accrescent to 4 × 2 mm, pinnatifid with 6–8 lateral lobules, the lobules narrowly oblong-lanceolate and shorter than the width of the calyx-lobe rhachis, sparingly puberulous and setulose, green, the calyx-lobe rhachis loriform or oblong, sparingly puberulous without, glabrous within, becoming hardened and stramineous within; ovary 1.5 mm in diameter, strongly 3-lobed, puberulous, setose on the keels; stylar column 1 mm high, 1 mm wide at the base, conical, sparingly puberulous, persistent, stigmas minute, smooth, recurved.Fruit 5 × 9–10 mm, strongly 3-lobed, smooth, evenly pubescent, sparingly setose on the keels.Seeds 4 mm in diameter, globose, buff, spotted and mottled with dark purplish-brown, with scattered pale circular patches fringed with minute whitish papillae.