5. Parietaria, Tourn.

Annual or perennial herbs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, quite entire, 3-nerved; stipules wanting. Flowers polygamous, in axillary cymes or glomerules, sessile, bracteate. Male flowers (often hermaphrodite): Perianth deeply 3–4-partite; segments valvate. Stamens 3–4, inflexed in bud. Female flowers: Perianth tubular at the base, 3–4-lobed. Ovary free within the perianth; stigma recurved, penicillate; ovule solitary, erect. Achene enclosed in the variously enlarged persistent perianth, crustaceous. Seed albuminous; cotyledons oblong or ovate.

A small genus of 7 or 8 species, generally distributed in both temperate and tropical regions. The single New Zealand species has almost the range of the genus.

• 1. P. debilis, Forst. Prodr, n. 387.—A slender flaccid more or less pubescent diffusely branched annual herb 6–18 in. high. Leaves on long slender petioles; blade ½–1½ in. long, broadly ovate or ovate-cordate, obtuse or obtusely acuminate, thin and membranous, quite entire, green on both surfaces, 3-nerved from the base. Cymes 3–7-flowered, almost contracted into sessile clusters; bracts linear, shortly united at the base. Hermaphrodite (or male) flowers usually in the fork of the cyme; perianth almost unchanged in fruit. Female flowers lateral; perianth evidently enlarged in fruit. Achene verv minute, dark-brown, quite smooth.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 354; "Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 226; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 252; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi.' 188. Urtica debilis, Endl. Prodr. Fl. Norfolk. 37; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 334; Raoul, Choice, 42.

  Kermadec Islands, North and South Islands: Abundant as far south as middle Otago. Sea-level to 2500 ft. Flowers spring and summer.