Herbs perennial, monoecious. Rhizomes stoloniferous. Stems few branched, to 100 cm tall; stems and petioles puberulent and densely or sparsely covered with stinging hairs. Stipules greenish, interpetiolar, connate, oblong or ovate-oblong, 10-15 mm, herbaceous, 7-10-ribbed, puberulent and with cystoliths on both surfaces, apex obtuse; petiole 3-8 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate or cordate, sometimes oblong, 6-15 × 3-10 cm, 5-veined, lateral basal veins reaching middle lobes, secondary veins 3-5 each side, adaxial surface with sparse, stinging and setulose hairs, abaxial surface densely setulose and sparsely armed with stinging hairs on veins, base cordate or rounded, margin doubly dentate or many lobed, lobes deltoid, denticulate, interlobes 0.7-2 cm, apex shortly acuminate; cystoliths punctiform, rarely botuliform adaxially. Inflorescences unisexual, paniculate with many long branches, spreading, 4-10 cm, longer than petioles; male flowers in proximal axils; female flowers in distal axils. Male flowers shortly pedicellate, in bud ca. 1.4 mm, perianth lobes connate below middle. sparsely puberulent. Female flowers slenderly pedunculate; perianth lobes connate at base, dorsal-ventral lobes suborbicular, setulose, lateral lobes suborbicular, ca. 1/3 as long as dorsal ones. Achene light brownish, oblong-globose or subglobose, slightly compressed, ca. 1 mm, inconspicuously verrucose, invested by persistent perianth lobes. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Jul-Dec.

Partly shady, moist places in forests, thickets, along streams, roadsides; 1500-3400 m. SW Sichuan, SE Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Myanmar].