Subshrubs or herbs perennial, 0.8-1.5 m tall; stems often simple, 4-angled, upper ones appressed strigose, then glabrescent. Dioecious or sometimes monoecious. Leaves opposite; stipules lanceolate, 4-7 mm; petiole 1.5-13 cm, strigose or glabrescent; leaf blade ovate, oblong-ovate, lanceolate, or linear-lanceolate, 8-15(-23) × 2.5-6.5(-13) cm, herbaceous, secondary veins 3 or 4 each side of midvein, both surfaces sparsely strigose or glabrous, adaxial surface smooth, base obtuse or rounded, margin dentate, apex long acuminate or caudate. Glomerules distant on axillary spikelike flowering shoots, sometimes branched at base, 3.5-9(-16) cm. Male flowers 4-merous, sessile; perianth lobes elliptic, ca. 1 mm, sparsely puberulent, connate at base; rudimentary ovule obovoid, ca. 0.5 mm. Fruiting perianth tube almost without stipe, broadly rhomboid or obovoid, slightly compressed, ca. 1 mm, verrucose, strigose on shoulder, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, almost without stipe, apex 2(-4)-toothed. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Oct.

Secondary forests, thickets, along streams, roadsides; below 100 to 1400 m. S Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, SE Guizhou, W Hunan, Jiangxi, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Japan].