Herbs perennial, monoecious. Rhizomes long stolonifer-ous. Stems slender, simple or few branched, 25-50 cm tall; stems, petioles, and both surfaces of leaf blade sparsely hirtellous and armed with stinging hairs. Stipules greenish, interpetiolar, connate, ovate or oblong-ovate, 4-6 mm, membranous, with several ribs, apex shallowly 2-cleft or emarginate; petiole slender, 2.5-7 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate or ovate-cordate, 2.5-8.5 × 2-7 cm, often membranous, 5-veined, lateral basal veins arcuate, reaching middle margin, secondary veins 2-4 each side, base rounded or shallowly cordate, margin doubly dentate, teeth increasing in size distally, apex acuminate; cystoliths botuliform or sometimes punctiform. Inflorescences unisexual; male inflorescences in distal axils, spicate, 4-7 cm; female ones in proximal axils, subspicate, slender, with a few short branches, or male flowers in middle axils, female flowers in proximal and distal axils, subequal to or shorter than petioles. Male flowers sessile or short pedicellate, in bud ca. 1.3 mm; perianth lobes connate 1/2 of length, densely hirtellous, then glabrescent. Female flowers: perianth lobes connate at base, unequal, dorsal-ventral lobes suborbicular, sparsely setulose, lateral lobes broadly obovate, ca. 2 times as short as dorsal ones. Achene yellowish green, broadly ellipsoid-ovoid, slightly compressed, ca. 1 mm, smooth, invested by persistent perianth lobes. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

This species has been confused with Urtica ardens, e.g., by Chen (in FRPS), but that species has a denser, setulose indumentum and an often ovate leaf blade with the surface conspicuously wrinkled and the margin sharply doubly serrulate.

Partly shady, moist places of evergreen forests, along streams, roadsides; 1500-2400 m. W Guangxi, S Xizang, NW Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim].