Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs or small trees; stems erect or scandent, finely pubescent, without stinging hairs; plants monoecious, rarely dioecious
Leaves
alternate, rarely lower ones opposite, simple, chartaceous, entire, often 3-nerved from base, petiolate, upper ones often becoming gradually smaller, passing into bracts, with dot-like cystoliths; stipules lateral, free, often persistent
Inflorescences
of compact, axillary bisexual glomerules, branched or unbranched
Flowers
single, either in axils of unmodified leaves or subtended by reduced, bract-like leaves; each flower subtended by a triangular chaffy reddish bract
Male flowers
pedicellate, with 3-5 tepals; stamens 3-5, concave or abruptly inflexed and dorsally transversely plicate, opposite tepals; ovary rudimentary, clavate or oblong in outline
Female flowers
sessile, with an indefinite number of completely connate tepals enclosing ovaries; staminodes 0; ovary included; stigma sessile, filiform, villous on one side, soon deciduous
Achene
± compressed-ovoid, completely enclosed in enlarged, withered or scarcely changed membranaceous tepals; pericarp shiny, smooth, fawn, brown or white
Seed
with thin coat
x = 8, 10, 11, 13 (polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Pouzolzia
Gaudich.
Gaudichaud-Beaupré: 503 (1830)
Weddell: 389 (1856)
Weddell: 412 (1857)
Weddell: 219 (1869)
Bentham: 387 (1880)
Engler: 112 (1888)
Rendle: 287 (1917)
Brown: 550 (1925)
Friis & Jellis: 587 (1984)
Friis: 46 (1989)
Friis: 108 (1991)
Friis: 623 (1993)
Wilmot-Dear & Friis: 61 (1995)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species ± 35-40, mainly in the Old World tropical regions, occurring in both dry and humid habitats
Southern Africa
: Species 2, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape
References:
BENTHAM, G. 1880. Tribus
Urticeae
. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker,
Genera plantarum
3. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
BROWN, N.E. 1925.
Urticaceae
.
Flora capensis
5,2
ENGLER, A. 1888.
Urticaceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
3,1
FRIIS, I. 1989.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Urticaceae
FRIIS, I. 1991.
Urticaceae
.
Flora zambesiaca
9,6
FRIIS, I. 1993.
Urticaceae
. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich,
The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons
2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
FRIIS, I. & JELLIS, S. 1984. A synopsis of
Pouzolzia
Gaud. (
Urticaceae
) in tropical Africa, with an identification of
P. erythraeae
and
P. piscicelliana
.
Kew Bulletin
39
GAUDICHAUD-BEAUPRÉ, C. 1830. In M.L. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde ... exécuté sur les corvettes de S.M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne.
Botanique
. Pillet-ainé, Paris
RENDLE, A.B. 1917.
Urticaceae
.
Flora of tropical Africa
6,2
WEDDELL, H.A. 1856. Monographie de la famille des Urticacées. Gide & J. Baudry, Paris. Reprinted in
Archives du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
9
WEDDELL, H.A. 1857. Monographie de la famille des Urticacées. Gide & J. Baudry, Paris. Reprinted in
Archives du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
9
WEDDELL, H.A. 1869.
Urticaceae
. In A. de Candolle,
Prodromus
16,1. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
WILMOT-DEAR, C.M. & FRIIS, I. 1995. The New World species of
Boehmeria
and
Pouzolzia
(
Urticaceae
, tribus
Boehmerieae
). A taxonomic revision.
Opera Botanica
129
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