Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Subshrubs 1–2 m tall.

Stems: Woody stems soft with copious pale but slightly colored sap.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades orbicular to broadly obovate, 8–16 cm long, 7–15 cm wide. Surfaces glabrous or sparsely hairy especially on veins. Margins 3–5-lobed, margins glandular denticulate. Petioles 3–6 cm long, covered with stiff glandular hairs. Stipules well–developed, 3–5 mm long, divided into 2–4 narrow, branched, glanduliferous segments.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal dichasia; peduncles 2–4 cm long. Flowers unisexual; plants monoecious; staminate flowers on pedicels ca. 2 mm long pistillate flowers on pedicels ca. 5 mm long. Calyx 5-lobed; Calyx of staminate flowers 2–4(–5) mm long, with thick–stalked, capitate glands on the margins; Calyx of pistillate flowers 5–7 mm long, puberulent. Corolla of 5 petals; petals of staminate flowers dark red to purple, obovate, 3–5 mm long. Stamens in staminate flowers 8; filaments connate in lower one–third. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), pubescent, (2)3(4)-celled; ovules 1 per cell; styles connate at base, bifid. Staminate flower ovary absent.

Fruit: Capsules subglobose; 1–1.2 cm long and in diameter; 3–lobed; breaking into 3 segments at maturity. Seeds dark gray with black specks and mottled grayish and brown; 5.5–7.3 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 22

Habitat:

Elevation Range: