帚序苎麻 zhou xu zhu ma

Shrubs or small trees, 1.5-3 m tall; branchlets glabrous. Leaves opposite or alternate on distal branches; stipules lanceolate, ca. 1 cm; petiole 2-12 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate, broadly ovate to subcordate, or in upper branches narrowly ovate or narrowly elliptic, 8-17(-20) × 4.5-12 cm, secondary veins 3-5 pairs along midvein, anastomosing near margin, abaxial surface sparsely strigillose on veins, adaxial surface glabrous or subglabrous, base rounded or subcordate, margin crenulate from base, apex acuminate or caudate. Glomerules unisexual; male glomerules in the axils of current or fallen leaves on normal branches; female glomerules on long slender terminal or subterminal branches, drooping, usually rebranching, 30-50 cm, all leaves reduced and scale-like. Male glomerules axillary, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Male flowers 5-merous; pedicel 4-5 mm; perianth lobes boat-shaped to elliptic, ca. 1 mm, glabrous or subglabrous, connate at base, often corniculate near apex; rudimentary ovule ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm. Fruiting perianth brown, obovoid or ellipsoid with a cuneate to ± stipitate base, compressed, 0.8-1 mm, smooth, sparsely pubescent, sessile, apex with prolonged neck, ca. 0.2 mm, 2(or 3)-toothed. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Sep-Nov.

Forests, thickets, along streams; 100-1200 m. NW Guangxi, S Guizhou, Taiwan, S Yunnan [E India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam].