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Malabar Tree Nettle
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Malabar Tree Nettle
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Malabar Tree Nettle
Botanical name: Boehmeria glomerulifera    Family: Urticaceae (Nettle family)
Synonyms: Boehmeria malabarica, Boehmeria oblongifolia, Boehmeria depauperata

Malabar Tree Nettle is a large shrub or small tree, about 4 m tall. Bark is grayish brown, smooth. Branchlets are round, velvety. Alternately spirally arranged leaves are ovate-lanceshaped, 8-16 x 3.5-6 cm. Leaf tip is long-pointed, base rounded, margin toothed, velvety beneath, with glandular stinging hairs, 3-nerved at base. Stipules fall off, leaving a scar. Leaf-stalk is up to 9.5 cm long. Tiny flowers are borne in small spherical clusters in leaf axils. Clusters are usually unisexual, sometimes bisexual, 4-10 mm in diameter. Male ones are on proximal part of flower-bearing branches, female ones on distal part. Malabar Tree Nettle is found in undergrowth in evergreen to semi-evergreen forests up to 1200 m, in Indo-Malaysia and throughout Western Ghats.

Identification credit: Dinesh Valke, Navendu Pāgé
Photographed in Yana, Karnataka.
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