Girardinia diversifolia (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Girardinia diversifolia (Link) Friis

Family: Urticaceae

Synonyms

Girardinia heterophylla Decne., Urtica heterophylla Vahl.

Vernacular names

• Himalayan nettle, Nilgiri nettle (En)
• Thailand: kalangtang chaang, tam-yae chaang, la-chaa.

Distribution

In Asia from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to Indonesia, southern China and Taiwan. Widespread in tropical Africa, also in Madagascar and Yemen. Cultivated as a fibre plant in South India.

Uses

In India and Nepal the shiny, wool-like bast fibre from young stems is locally made into cordage and coarse textiles, sometimes blended with ramie ( Boehmeria nivea (L.) Gaudich.), cotton (Gossypium spp.) or wool, but it has not attained any commercial importance. The leaves are eaten as vegetable in the western Himalayas. In north-eastern India the seeds are used as fish poison.

Observations

An erect annual or short-lived perennial, 1.5(-2) m tall, monoecious or dioecious; stem sparsely branched, covered with stinging hairs 7-9 mm long and with short stiff hairs. Leaves alternate; stipules linear-lanceolate, fused for over four-fifths of their length; petiole 3-15 cm long; blade variously lobed or divided, 10-20(-25) cm × 10-18(-23) cm, base cuneate, truncate or cordate, margin dentate, apex acuminate. Inflorescence unisexual, cylindrical; male inflorescence a narrow, spicate panicle; peduncle up to 2 cm long; flowers on a 1 mm long pedicel, perianth 4-5-merous; female inflorescence a dense cymose, small dichasium 2-3 cm long at anthesis, elongating to 10-15 cm long in fruit. Fruit an ovoid to subcordate achene, compressed. In tropical areas G. diversifolia is found in montane forest. The fibre is extracted by stripping the bark off the stem, after which it is washed or scraped until the fibre is clean. Alternatively, the stripped-off bark is dried, and the fibre is freed by pounding, after which it is boiled with an alkaline solution made from wood ash, and then washed until it is clean. Indian fibre has been recorded as containing 7% moisture and 90% holocellulose. In studies in Indo-China in the 1940s, the bark of G. diversifolia yielded 61% fibre. Rough bark strips contained 16% moisture, 38% cellulose, 8% hemicelluloses, 8% lignin and 7% ash. After degumming the fibre contained 11% moisture, 67% cellulose, 8% hemicelluloses, 4% lignin and 3% ash. The fibre is of good quality, but the presence of irritating hairs on all plant parts makes handling unpleasant.

Selected sources

21, 31, 55, 66, 94, 109, 125, 197.

Authors

M. Brink, P.C.M. Jansen & C.H. Bosch