Zhu Ma Gen

Boehmeria nivea, ramie or China grass, is a perennial herbaceous subshrub of the Urticaceae family growing 1 to 2.5 m tall from a stout woody rootstock and spreading by underground rhizomes to form colonies. Unlike most relatives in the nettle family it lacks stinging hairs. Stems are erect, unbranched or sparingly branched, ribbed, and clothed in fine appressed pubescence. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to nearly orbicular, 7 to 18 cm long, coarsely serrate, dark green and roughened above, and conspicuously white-tomentose on the lower surface (giving the epithet nivea, snowy). The plant is monoecious; tiny greenish unisexual flowers are borne in slender axillary panicles, the staminate clusters below and pistillate above. The fruit is a minute hairy achene. Long cultivated across East and Southeast Asia for its strong stem bast fibers.