Herbs, annual or perennial, dioecious or monoecious. Stems often woody at base, straight, branched or not, 5-angled, 25-200 cm tall; stems and petioles spreading pubescent and armed with stinging and stigose hairs. Stipules oblong-ovate, 1-3 cm, sparsely strigose abaxially; petiole 2-15 cm; leaf blade light green, elliptic, ovate or oblate in outline, sometimes 3-lobed, 5-25 × 4-23 cm, herbaceous, 3-veined, lateral veins 3-5 each side, anastomosing before margin, abaxially sparsely pubescent and with armed stinging and setulose hairs, adaxially sparsely appressed strigose and armed with short stinging hairs, base cordate or subtruncate, margin usually 3, 5, or 7-lobed or, rarely, regularly serrate or sometimes doubly serrate at leaf base, apex short acuminate or acute; cystoliths minutely punctiform. Glomerules densely armed with stinging hairs. Male inflorescences in proximal axils, spicate, cymose-racemose or subpaniculate, 5-11 cm; female ones in distal axils of stem or in same axils as male, sometimes solitary, racemelike or paniculate, rarely long spicate, 1-28 cm, strigose and spreading hirsute. Male flowers subsessile or pedicellate, in bud 1 mm; perianth lobes 4, ovate, concave, setulose abaxially, apex acute, stamens 4; rudimentary ovary cupular. Female flowers ca. 0.5 mm; perianth lobes unequal, the larger connate lobe cymbiform, 0.4 mm, enlarged to 1 mm at fruit, sparsely strigillose on outside, apex 3-toothed, the smaller lobe linear. Achene dark brownish to gray-brown, subcordate to broadly ovoid, slightly compressed, 1.5-3 mm in diam., conspicuously verrucose. Fl. Sep-Oct, fr. Oct-Nov.

Forest margins, shady moist places, along streams, disturbed places, near villages; (?100-)300-2800 m. Chongqing, Gansu, Guizhou, Hebei, W Henan, Hubei, NW Hunan, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, E Nei Mongol, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, S Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka; Africa (including Madagascar)].