Urera caracasana
Content
Description
Shrub or tree up to 5(-10) m tall. Branchlets 3-10 mm thick, appressed-puberulous to strigose, without prickles but often with stinging hairs. Stipules 0.5-1.5 cm long, puberulous, persistent; petiole 2.5-25 cm long, hirtellous to strigillose; blade entire, chartaceous, broadly to narrowly ovate, (3-)12-36 x (2.5-)8-26 cm, apex acuminate, base cordate to obtuse, margin crenate to dentate-crenate, scabridulous to scabrous, hispidulous to hirtellous above, strig(ill)ose to hirtellous beneath; secondary veins 5-9 pairs. Inflorescences in the leaf axils or below the leaves, up to ca. 20 cm long, often with stinging hairs; flowers in (sub)capitate glomerules or solitary, (sub)sessile or pedicellate respectively. Staminate flowers: tepals 4(-5), ca. 1 mm long; stamens 4(-5). Pistillate flowers: tepals almost free, unequal, ca. 0.5 mm long. Achene lens-shaped, ca. 1-1.5 mm long; fruiting perianth white.