Boehmeria cylindrica

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Boehmeria cylindrica

Description

Subshrub or herb, branched, up to 1.5 m tall. Branchlets 1.5-3 mm thick, puberulous or glabrous. Leaves distichous, (sub)opposite on stem and major branchlets, alternate on the smaller branchlets; stipules 0.1-0.3 cm long, appressed-puberulous on the primary vein and ciliolate, caducous or subpersistent; petiole 0.2-3 cm long; blade chartaceous, narrowly elliptic (to elliptic) to narrowly ovate (to ovate), 1.5-7.5(-9) x 0.7-2.5(-4.5) cm, apex acute to subacuminate, base rounded to obtuse (or subacute), margin more or less coarsely crenate-dentate, sparsely puberulous above, (appressed-)puberulous beneath; secondary veins 1-4 pairs. Inflorescences axillary or on leafless (parts of) lateral branchlets, sessile, 0.1-0.3(-0.5) cm in diam.; flowers (sub)sessile. Staminate flowers: tepals ca 0.7 mm long, sparsely puberulous, not corniculate. Pistillate flowers: perianth ca. 1 mm long; stigma ca. 0.2 mm long. Achene ca. 0.5 mm long, enclosed by a more or less compressed, in outline suborbicular perianth with a few uncinate hairs.

Distribution

French Guiana present, North America present, Southern America, eastern Brazil present
North America, West Indies and eastern Brazil; only known by a collection of Poiteau labelled French Guiana, but which might be from the West Indies, where he also collected.

Notes

The species is very variable. The Poiteau collection matches forms found in eastern Brazil.