Dendrocnide peltata, commonly known simply as the Stinging Tree or Jelaton, is a large tree in the nettle

Nettle

Nettles constitute between 24 and 39 species of flowering plants of the genus Urtica in the family Urticaceae, with a cosmopolitan though mainly temperate distribution. They are mostly herbaceous perennial plants, but some are annual and a few are shrubby...

 family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Urticaceae

Urticaceae

Urticaceae, or the nettle family, is a family of flowering plants. The family name comes from the genus Urtica . Urticaceae includes a number of well-known and useful plants, including the aforementioned nettles, Ramie , māmaki , and ajlai .The family includes approximately 2600 species, grouped...

. With the other species of the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Dendrocnide

Dendrocnide

Dendrocnide is a genus of 37 species of shrub to large tree in the nettle family Urticaceae. They have a wide distribution across South-East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands.They are colloquially known as stinging nettles or nettle trees...

it is known for the stinging hairs which cover the whole plant and cause severe pain when touched. The specific epithet comes from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 pelta (a shield), referring to the peltate leaves.

Description

Dendrocnide peltata is a dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 tree. Although often encountered as a small, sub-canopy tree, it may grow to be a large canopy tree up to 30 m high. The trunk grows to a diameter of 650 mm, and is usually crooked and lacking buttresses, while the bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

 is green or grey in colour, and rough, scaly or flaky in texture. The large leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

, which are broadly ovate, usually peltate, rounded at the base, crenate, acute to acuminate, dark green above and pale green beneath, are clustered at the ends of the branches. The small flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s grow as axillary inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

s are about 20 mm long, green or brown, with the seeds about 2 mm in diameter.

Distribution and habitat

There are two botanic varieties of the tree:

• Dendrocnide peltata (Blume) Miq. var. peltata is native to Java
  Java
  Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
  
  , Bali
  Bali
  Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
  
  , New Guinea
  New Guinea
  New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
  
   and Christmas Island
  Christmas Island
  The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is located northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and ENE of the Cocos Islands....
  
  .
• Dendrocnide peltata var. murrayana (Rendle) Chew is endemic to Christmas Island.