Monographs Details:
Authority:

Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
Family:

Urticaceae
Scientific Name:

Pilea Lindl.
Description:

Description - Herbs, with opposite petioled mostly 3-nerved leaves, connate stipules, and small monoecious or dioecious flowers in axillary clusters. Staminate flowers mostly 4-parted (sometimes 2- or 3-parted) and with a rudimentary ovary. Pistillate flowers 3-parted, the segments in most species unequal, each subtending a staminodium in the form of a concave scale; ovary straight; stigma sessile, penicillate. Achene compressed. Seed-coat thin. Endosperm scanty or none. [Name unexplained.] About 160 species, chiefly in the tropics, most abundant in tropical America. Type species: Pilea muscosa Lindl.