Droguetia Gaudich.

Urticaceae, I. Friis. Flora Zambesiaca 9:6. 1991

Morphology General Habit

Slender annual or perennial herbs, occasionally subshrubs, with erect or prostrate stems, monoecious or apparently dioecious (by abortion of all bisexual inflorescences leaving only female flowers).

Morphology General Cystoliths

Cystoliths dot-like.

Morphology Leaves

Leaves alternate or opposite, petiolate, serrate; stipules lateral, free.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences

Inflorescences of sessile clusters in the leaf axils; clusters either bisexual with few-many flowers surrounded by a common campanulate involucrum of fused bracts or inflorescence clusters of many very small involucres each with 1(2) female flowers (the involucres then appear as perianths).

Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences Bracts

Bisexual involucres usually with many male flowers and 1 -few female flowers (occasionally all the flowers are male); bracts and flowers with long woolly hairs.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers

Female flowers naked, pedicellate, consisting of an ovary covered with a woolly tomentum; stigma sessile, filiform; staminodes absent Entirely-female involucres are common on certain individuals, and then much smaller and with much fewer flowers than the bisexual involucres. Male flowers pedicellate, club-shaped; perianth 3-lobed, one lobe apiculate and provided with prominent bristles; stamen 1, inflexed in bud, later reflexed; rudimentary ovary absent.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Achene enclosed in the persistent involucre, brown, shiny, often crowned by the persistent stigma.