紫麻 zi ma

Shrubs or small trees, 1-3 m tall; branchlets and petioles purplish brown, strigose or pubescent, rarely tomentose, then often glabrescent. Stipules linear-lanceolate, ca. 1 cm; petiole 1-7 cm; leaf blade ovate, narrowly ovate, or obovate, rarely oblanceolate, 3-15 × 1.5-6 cm, herbaceous, sometimes papery, 3-veined, basal-lateral pair reaching apex, anastomosing with basal pair of secondary veins, secondary veins 2-3 pairs, anastomosing by margin, adaxially dark green, sparsely strigillose, sometimes subglabrous, abaxially often gray-white tomentose, or light green, pubescent or strigillose on veins, base rounded or cuneate, margin serrate or dentate from base or sometimes middle, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate. Inflorescences produced with or before new leaf flush in axils of fallen leaves and older branches, almost sessile clusters or pedunculate dichotomously branched cymes; glomerules 3-5 mm in diam. Male flowers: perianth lobes 3, ovate, connate at base, ca. 1.2 mm; rudimentary ovary subclavate, ca. 0.6 mm. Female flowers ca. 1 mm. Achene ovoid, ca. 1.2 mm, often verrucose, surrounded by a fleshy discoid cupule at base. Fl. Feb-Apr, fr. Jun-Oct.

Forests, margins of mixed forests, open thickets, valleys, roadsides; 300-2500 m. S Anhui, Fujian, SE Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, SE Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, Cambodia, N India, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam].

The stem fibers are used to make ropes.