Plant: shrub to 1 m tall; young stems densely to sparsely hirsute and densely glandular with stalked glands; older stems glabrate and becoming reddish or grayish Leaves: ovate to cordate, 1-5 cm long, 0.5-4 cm wide, hirsute and glandular; apex acute or obtuse; base truncate to rounded or cordate; margin crenate; petioles about half as long as the blade, with pubescence like the young stems Inflorescence: SPIKES in lower axils with only staminate flowers or with 1(-3) pistillate flowers near base, 1-4 cm long, terminal spikes and those in the upper axils with only pistillate flowers, fairly open, 1-2 cm long, often conspicuously red in flower because of the stigmas; bracts subtending pistillate flowers 1-3 mm long in flower and 3-5 mm long in fruit, with (8-)10-18 small rounded teeth, hispid and glandular Flowers: STAMINATE FLOWERS very small, subsessile, several in the axil of a minute bract; calyx lobes 4; petals and disk 0; stamens 4-8, the anthers pendent, elongated, and twisted at maturity. PISTILLATE FLOWERS sessile, 1-3 in the axil of an often large foliaceous bract; calyx lobes 3(-5); petals and disk 0; pistil with (1-)3 carpels, the ovary (1-)3-locular, the style branches usually dissected into thread-like segments Fruit: FRUITS ca. 2 mm long, ca. 3 mm wide, short hispid and glandular. SEEDS 1.5-2 mm long, dark brown, finely pitted Misc: Rocky slopes and along washes; 350-900 m (1100-3000 ft); Jan-Dec, especially Mar-Apr and Sep-Nov REFERENCES: Levin, Geoffrey A. Euphorbiaceae Part 1. Acalypha and Cnidoscolus. J. Ariz. – Nev. Acad. Sci. 29(1): 18.