Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Stout perennial herb, 10–25 dm tall.

Stems: Stems green, erect, unbranched, rufous pilose when young.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple, rarely compound. Alternate; widely spaced, blades oblique to petioles. Blades reniform–cordate, 9–17 cm long, 1.2–2 cm wide. Upper surfaces sparsely scabrous; lower surfaces densely pilose when young; blades membranous. Margins coarsely and shallowly lobed, undulate, and sparsely ciliate. Petioles 8–16 cm long. Stipules ovate–oblong, 1.5–3 cm long, entire.

Flowers: Flowers numerous in axillary, subumbellate cymes. Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious), often somewhat irregular. Bracts deciduous, similar to stipules. Perianth parts usually distinct, rarely inconsistently connate, staminate flowers usually consisting of 4 parts in 2 opposite pairs, the lower apparently represent the Calyx, the upper representing the corolla, occasionally only 2 parts or more than 4; pistillate flowers usually consisting of a single imbricate series of 5 Perianth parts or sometimes 2–4(6–8). Perianth of staminate flowers in 4 parts, white to pale pink, outer ones very broadly elliptic, ca. 8–9 mm long, inner pair elliptic, ca. 7 mm long. pistillate perianth parts usually 5, larger pair broadly elliptic, ca. 8 mm long, smaller pair elliptic, ca. 7 mm long, the fifth one elliptic, ca. 8 mm long. Stamens ca. 18, distinct; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or occasionally by terminal pores, the connective usually protruded above the pollen sacs or sometimes well separating them. Ovary inferior, with as many cells or rarely the placental partitions not complete and thus 1-celled, placentation axile or, when ovary 1-celled, parietal; ovules numerous, anatropous; styles distinct or sometimes connate, usually 2-lobed; stigmas usually twisted.

Fruit: Loculicidal capsules; usually with prominent unequal or equal wings; sometimes fleshy and indehiscent; capsules ellipsoid; ca. 8–10 mm long; winged; the larger wing ca. 7 mm wide. Seeds numerous and small; endosperm essentially absent; reticulate.

Ploidy: 2n = 38; 70

Habitat: naturalized in usually dry; open or shaded; disturbed sites.

Elevation Range: