Habit***: ours herbs, often with ***stinging hairs
Leaves: opposite or alternate, simple, stipulate
Plants: monoecious or dioecious
Inflorescence: cymose, usually axillary cymes
Sepals: 3-5, distinct or connate
Petals: absent
Stamens: 3-5, distinct, opposite the sepals
Gynoecium: of 1 superior carpel with 1 locule and 1 basal ovule
Fruit: achene or drupe
Diversity: 45 genera / 1000 species
Distribution: cosmopolitan, many tropical
Economics: ramie (commercial fiber) comes from a genus in this family; Urtica (stinging nettle) has hollow hairs that act as hypodermics injecting acetylcholine (causes stinging) and histamine (causes itchng); plants can be boiled (destroys hairs and compounds and eaten like spinach).
Paritaria
Urtica dioica