北越苎麻 bei yue zhu ma

Boehmeria tonkinensis Gagnepain.

Small shrubs 1-3 m tall; branches dark purplish brown, strigose. Monoecious. Leaves opposite, slightly unequal in size; stipules lanceolate, 5-8 mm; petiole 0.3-2.5 cm, strigose; leaf blade oblong-obovate or oblong-oblanceolate, 5-12 × 2-3.2 cm, thinly papery, secondary veins 3 or 4 each side of midvein, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, abaxial surface pubescent with strigose veins, adaxial surface slightly rugulose, sparsely strigose, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, margin denticulate, apex acuminate, tip denticulate. Glomerules on axillary spikelike branches, with a few branches from near base, 4-11 cm, often paired at each axil, often bisexual with proximal female glomerules and distal male glomerules; glomerules 2.5-3 mm in diam., 1-3 mm apart. Male flowers 4-merous, subsessile; perianth lobes elliptic, ca. 1 mm, sparsely puberulent, connate at base, corniculate near apex; rudimentary ovule obovoid, ca. 0.3 mm. Fruiting perianth broadly obovoid, compressed, ca. 1 mm, smooth, strigose on shoulder, base rounded, apex 2-toothed. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Jun-Aug.

Moist open places, secondary forests, near streams; 200-1300 m. Hainan, SE Yunnan [Malaysia, Vietnam].

This species is here newly recorded for China. Hainan and N Vietnam have very similar floras with many species in common, often localized around the Beibu (Tonkin) gulf.

Also see CHEN, C. J., C. M. Wilmot-Dear & I. Friis. 2005. Notes on Chinese and Indochinese Boehmeria (Urticaceae). Kew Bull. 60: 449–453.