四脉麻 si mai ma

Small trees or shrubs evergreen, to 7 m tall; bark dark brown. Branches often zigzagged, each node with an annular scar; young branchlets, stipules, and petioles densely appressed pubescent, glabrescent. Stipules lanceolate, 2-2.5 cm; petiole 0.5-1.5 cm; leaf blade adaxially green, obliquely ovate to obliquely elliptic, 5-16 × 2.7-7 cm, papery, 3-5-veined at base, secondary veins 2-3 each side of midvein, adaxial surface strigillose, appressed strigillose on veins, thinly gray woolly tomentose on veinlet meshes, base obliquely rounded, margin crenate-serrulate, apex shortly acuminate or acute. Cymes 0.5-1.5 cm; peduncle appressed pubescent; glomerules 4-7 mm, in fruit to 1.5 cm in diam. Male flowers: perianth lobes 4, narrowly ovate, 1.5-2 mm, connate at base, strigillose near apex; rudimentary ovary woolly at base. Achene broadly ovoid, 1.5-2 mm. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Jul-Aug.

Mixed rain forests, along streams; below 200 m. Taiwan (Lan Yu, Lu Dao) [Philippines].

The stem fibers are used to make ropes and sacks.