Flora of the Hawaiian Islands
Dicotyledon Literature for Pilea peploides
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999.
   Urticaceae -- The Cecropia, Nettle Family Bibliography
      Pilea peploides
General Information
DistributionIndigenous to northern South America, Galápagos Islands, and Hawaiian IslandsIn the Hawaiian Islands, indigenous to Ni`ihau, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.

Urticaceae - Pilea peploides















Click here for detailed USGS map by Jonathan Price
Habit
Slender, low, short-lived perennial herbs; stems somewhat fleshy, weakly ascending or decumbent, 5-20(-30) cm long.
Leaves
Leaves well-spaced or crowded toward tips of stems, upper surface green, lower surface pale and somewhat tinged red, broadly ovate to suborbicular, sometimes rhombic-cuneate, 4-45 mm long, (2-)6-15(-23) mm wide, those of a pair subequal, but 1 petiole often shorter, 3-nerved, both surfaces with linear to elliptic cystoliths, margins crenate in upper 1/2, sometimes margins of few lower leaf pairs entire, petioles 3-25 mm long, usually equalling or longer than the blade, stipules 1-1.5 mm long.
Flowers
Flowers unisexual (and the plants monoecious), in dense, axillary, sessile fascicles; staminate flowers 0.4-0.5 mm long, calyx lobes oblong, hooded, glabrous, each with a minute dorsal, apiculate appendage; pistillate flowers more numerous than staminate, on pedicels 1-1.5(-2) mm long, calyx tinged red, the outer calyx lobe largest, 0.6-0.8 mm long, the others 0.4-0.6 mm long.
Fruit
Achenes lenticular-ovoid, 0.6-0.8 mm long, partly enclosed by the largest calyx lobe.