PLANTS: Suffrutescent perennials; hairs barbed, some stinging.

LEAVES: mostly petiolate; blades elliptic, broadly ovate to suborbicular, often cordate; margins lobed, crenate, toothed or incised

INFLORESCENCE: cymose.

FLOWERS: subtended by 1 often leaf-like bract; calyx persistent, the lobes linear to lanceolate; petals greenish, white to cream, yellow or orange-red, either basally coherent and adherent to staminal tube or clearly sympetalous and the stamens epipetalous; stamens ca. 20-100, shorter or longer than the petals, the filaments linear, connate into a short tube; pistil 5-carpellate; stigmas 5, the lobes appressed and appearing as grooves or a terminal tuft of hairs.

CAPSULES: apically dehiscent by 5 valves.

SEEDS: numerous, 0.5-1.5 mm long, parietal; testa longitudinally striate; endosperm lacking. x = 21.

NOTES: 14 spp.; sw U.S. to Guatemala. (Greek: eu = true + knide = nettle). These species characteristically grow from crevices of rock faces or on very steep rocky slopes.

REFERENCES: Christy, Charlotte M. 1998. Loasaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 30(2): 96.