of stipules, constantly having toothed leaves, but having no aromatic or bitter properties; on the contrary, they abound in vegetable mucus. It is near Menispermads that they seem most to demand a place, notwithstanding the very different views that have formerly been held upon the subject. The unisexual flowers, with the parts on a ternary plan, scrambling habit, disunited carpels, and copious albumen, now appear of more importance than the hypogynous insertion of their stamens and the polypetalous flowers.

The few species hitherto discovered belong to the continents and islands of India, Japan, and the hotter provinces of North America.

The species abound in mucus, and appear to be quite insipid. The fruit of some are eaten. Siebold describes that of Kadsura japonica as being viscid, tasteless, and uneatable; he adds, that by boiling a sort of mucilage is obtained from its branches and applied to the fabrication of Broussonetia paper; it is also employed by the Japanese women to cleanse their hair of the pomatum they so largely employ.

GENERA.
Kadsura, Juss.

Sarcocarpum, Blum.
Sphærostema, Blum.
Schizandra, L. C. Rich.
Hortonia, Wight.

? Mayna, Aubl.

NUMBERS. GEN. 5. Sp. 12.

POSITION.-Myristicaceae.-SCHIZANDRACEA.-Lardizabalacea.

Anonacea.

ORDER CIV. MENISPERMACEE.-MENISPERMADS.

Menisperme, Juss. Gen. 284. (1789); DC. Syst. 1. 508.-Menispermaceae, DC. Prodr. 1. 95. (1824); Wight and Arnott. Prodr. 1. 11; Endl. clxxii.; Meisner, p. 5; Wight Illustr. 1. 19. DIAGNOSIS.-Menispermal Exogens, with amphitropal seeds, and a large embryo in a moderate quantity of solid albumen.

Shrubs with a flexible tough tissue, and sarmentaceous habit; leaves alternate, entire, rarely sinuously lobed, often palmately nerved and very reticulated. Flowers

Fig. CCXII.

usually much smaller than the sepals, generally 6 in 2 rows, and alternate with them, seldom in a binary or single series, and rarely combined in a hypogynous cup. Stamens generally distinct and equal in number to the petals, and placed opposite to them, upon a stipitate androphore, rarely more numerous, sometimes aggregated in a monadelphous form, by the union of the filaments into a central column, with the anthers free or combined into a solid body. Anthers in the free stamens various in form and mode of dehiscence, introrse or extrorse, 2-celled, in the monadelphous stamens congregated into a globular head, or around the margin of a peltate horizontal discoid connective. Ovaria usually only 3 rudimentary points, often wanting. Sepals and petals generally as in the 3, rarely each reduced to a single scale, one placed before the other at the foot of a single ovary. Stamens often distinctly formed, with the anther cells reduced to a glandular lobe, sometimes only rudimentary or scale-like, often wanting; ovaria generally 3, sometimes 6, the whole of which do not always become fecundated; distinct, seated on the summit of a stipitate gynophore, 1-celled, with a single ovule attached by its edge on a placenta upon its axile face, with the foramen in its free apex, soon becoming curved by the extraordinary growth of the placenta, and

Fig. CCXII-Cissampelos tropaolifolia. 1. a flower; 2. a portion of a fruit, with the seed laid bare; 3. a perpendicular section of a fruit.

more or less homotropal or campylotropal by the greater increment of the ovary on the dorsal face. Drupes usually fleshy, containing a single nut obsoletely 2-valved, greatly various in form and development, always 1-celled, with the cell more or less curved about a central process (condyle), which is a peculiar development of the placenta. Seed single, partaking of the form of the cell, enveloped in a membranous integument, attached by its ventral face to the condyle, albuminous or exalbuminous; albumen, when present, abundant or small in quantity, either homogeneous in texture or partially divided into lamellar plates or convolutions, in which case the integumental covering partly enters into its numerous interstitial spaces. Embryo homotropous or campylotropous; cotyledons either flat and foliaceous, and either incumbently parallel or laterally widely divaricated, and placed in distinct cells of the albumen, or with cotyledons narrow, flattened, accumbent, and coiled in a perispherical form, or very long, slender, terete, accumbent or incumbent, and coiled in a hippocrepical or somewhat annular form; in the exalbuminous tribe the cotyledons are large, thick, fleshy, and hippocrepically or reniformly bent, and incumbent; the radicle in all cases is superior, short, terete, curved more or less, and pointed to the style or original apex of the fruit, which, by its inflexion, is often curved downwards to near its base. Miers.

Our knowledge of this curious family has hitherto been extremely imperfect, and I am indebted to Mr. Miers for the above outline and for the facts upon which the following observations are founded; he has prepared an extensive monograph of the whole order, with numerous drawings and analyses, which are not yet published, but he has given a slight outline of these results (Ann. Nat. Hist., 2nd. Ser. vii. 33). In the "Introduction to Botany," this family was placed in the class Imperfectæ, on account of its undeveloped flowers and curved embryo; but in my subsequent arrangement in the former edition of this work (p. 307), it was arranged among diclinous exogens, in a distinct alliance, under views in which Mr. Miers does not concur. He thinks that Monimiacea, Atherospermacca and Myristicacea form a good alliance in the same position, but that Menispermacea, Schizandraces and Lardizabalaceæ constitute another valid group which should occupy a different place in the system; the former being monochlamydeous and essentially unisexual, might retain its place among diclinous exogens, but the latter are truly dichlamydeous, for although the petals are generally reduced to the size of scales, they are ever regular in their form and number, and with rare exceptions, constantly present; the diclinous character of their flowers is due only to abortion, for they are sometimes hermaphrodite or polygamous, and in the flower rudiments of the ovaria are commonly seen, and in the the sterile stamens are of frequent occurrence. Mr. Miers, therefore, argues that according to the rule laid down in this work (p. 240), such flowers should not be held to be truly diclinous; and he would say that on account of their many seried floral envelopes and numerous 1-ovulate carpels, this alliance should find its place in the system between Ranales and Berberales. I have already pointed out the affinity of the Kadsurads to the Magnoliads (p. 418). The Menispermads at the same time approach the Anonads (especially the tribes Bocageæ and Xylopies) in their bisexual flowers, the frequently valvate æstivation of their flowers, their numerous unilocular carpels with ovules attached to the ventral suture, and in their seeds often with albumen divided into lamellar plates. This is nearly the position long ago assigned to the family by botanists; De Candolle, however, suggested a resemblance to the Sterculiads, on account of their monadelphous stamens and peltate leaves, but they differ in all other most essential respects. According to St. Hilaire they are related to Spurgeworts, because Phyllanthus sometimes has its anthers born on a monadelphous column, as in Cissampelos, a rare occurrence in both families, and there is little else to support so distant a conclusion. Mallowworts have also been suggested, with as little foundation. Mr. Miers remarks, that there is probably no family so completely heteromorphous as the Menispermads, or that presents such extreme and aberrant features, at variance with its normal structure; these extremes are found in the habit of the plants, in the texture and form of the leaves, in the various modes of inflorescence, in the number, arrangement, and manner of æstivation of the floral envelopes, in the form and position of the stamens, as well as in the structure of the anthers and their mode of dehiscence, in the presence or absence of a distinct gynophore, in the variable character of the style and stigma, in the extent of development of the ovules, in the form of the nut, in the seed, sometimes exalbuminous, at others with albumen highly developed, which is often fleshy and homogeneous, copious or sparse" in quantity, and in other cases singularly constructed of lamellar plates; and finally in the variation of the form and development of the embryo, whose cotyledons are sometimes large, fleshy, and adpressed, or they are slender and terete, or long and ribbon-formed, foliaceous, thin in texture, divaricate, and placed in separate cells in

the albumen. Such extreme differences of structural arrangement would, in many cases, induce a division of the family into distinct orders; but the Menispermacea possess so many features in common, and are so very distinct from any other class of plants, that their integrity as one entire group is both desirable and natural. They are however divided by Mr. Miers in the following manner:-1. HETEROCLINEÆ : Embryo homotropous; cotyledons foliaceous, laterally much divaricated, and placed in distinct cells formed by the junction of two plates of albumen, the dorsal being simple and thin, the ventral thick and deeply cavous, and generally divided into numerous transverse plates, separated often by the intervention of the integuments; radicle short, terete, incurved, and superior. 2. ANOMOSPERMEE: Sepals imbricated in æstivation. Embryo heterotropal, or campylotropal, terete, long, slender; cotyledons not thicker than the radicle, accumbent, curved hippocrepically or spirally; radicle short, superior, sometimes directed nearly to the basal style; albumen copious, cleft all round embryo into numerous irregular curved transverse deep fissures. 3. TILIACOREE: Inner row of sepals valvate in æstivation; embryo hippocrepical, campylotropal; cotyledons long, narrow, ribbon-formed, incumbent; radicle short, directed towards the style, which is curved round to near the base of the fruit; albumen as in the Anomospermeæ. 4. LEPTOGONEE: Sepals imbricate in æstivation; stamens distinct or united in a central column; embryo hippocrepically campylotropal; cotyledons long, slender, terete, subincumbent, curved in a nearly annular form; radicle superior, centripetal; albumen simple, small in quantity. 5. PLATYGONEE Embryo hippocrepically campylotropal; cotyledons elongated, flat, ribbonshaped, incumbent, curved in a nearly annular or horseshoe-form, enclosed in albumen, small in quantity. 6. PACHYGONEE: Inner row of sepals often imbricate, sometimes valvate in æstivation; embryo exalbuminous; cotyledons large, thick, fleshy, incumbent, curved hemicyclically; radicle small, pointing toward the nearly basal style.

The woody branches of the Menispermaceæ, like most climbing exogens, often present a peculiar appearance; on making a transverse section, the medullary plates, in solid and compact ribs, are seen to radiate from the central pith like the spokes of a wheel, and are connected with each other on the circumference by curved segments of similar material, leaving large wedge-shaped spaces between them wholly filled with coarse longitudinal fibres, without muriform cellular tissue, and among them large hollow ducts visible to the naked eye, and which, when dried, become agglutinated in separate bundles like as many cords of unequal size, giving the wood great flexibility and toughness. For a long time these stems were supposed to be zoneless, a conclusion drawn from specimens of a single year's growth collected in herbaria; but older stems sometimes exhibit as many as forty concentric zones, as distinct as those seen in pinewood. The leaves have a peculiar appearance, often thick and coriaceous, sometimes thin and finely reticulated, generally with palmate nervures, often more or less peltate; and this occasionally to such an extent, that some species of Cissampelos present an orbicular blade borne nearly on its centre upon its petiole, like the leaf of the common garden Tropaeolum. Flowers are generally minute, and of a pale greenish hue. Mr. Miers thinks that, normally, they are not unisexual, and that this happens only from partial abortion; for generally the rudiments of the ovaria are seen in the male flowers, and sterile stamens occur in the females, while in Botryopsis dealbata they are occasionally polygamous, and in Tiliacora regularly hermaphrodite. The radicle is stated by many botanists to be inferior; this, however, is a mistake, it is always superior, and directed towards the persistent style, which remaining in its erect position, at little more than its original distance from the pedicel, appears in the loose fruit as if it were nearly basal, owing to the extraordinary and excentric growth of the ovary on its dorsal face.

Several of the plants of this order are described as being remarkably tenacious of life, so that if a large branch be broken at a considerable distance from the ground, the upper portion immediately throws out a slender filiform shoot, which speedily re-establishes a connexion with the soil and preserves the plant: these shoots have have been seen eight feet long, and not thicker than a common pack-thread.-Wight. Spirospermum, Agdestis, Iodes, and Meniscosta are excluded from the family: the latter is identical with Sabia; Iodes belongs to Phytocreneæ, a group of plants placed here by many botanists, but which differ in having more developed petals with which the stamens always alternate, only a single ovarium, in no degree gibbous, and though unilocular, has always two ovules suspended from the summit of the cell: the fruit is regular in form, without any tendency towards the remarkably excentric development, invariably seen in the Menispermaceæ.

This order is common in Asia and America, chiefly within the tropics: the species are found in woods, climbing among trees to a great height.

Active narcotic and bitter qualities prevail among the species, the former in excess, rendering them poisonous, the latter causing them to be regarded as valuable tonics: a few are mucilaginous. These properties are due to peculiar principles residing in the plants, and called Calumbine, Menispermine, and Picrotoxine, the characters of which are yet little known. Calumbine occurs in the root of Jateorhiza palmata, the Calumba root of commerce, which is extensively used on the coast of Africa as a tonic; it is narcotic and bitter. It is also found in several species of Tinospora. Botryopsis platyphylla and cinerea (called Butua), Cissampelos ovalifolia (Orelha de Onça) are used in Brazil, and Cissampelos Pareira (Pareira brava), and Caapéba in the West Indies, Cissampelos Mauritiana in Madagascar, Coscinium fenestratum (Weni-vel) in Ceylon, and Tinospora Bakis in Senegal, as tonics and diuretics. The Brazilians administer Cissampelos glaberrima and ebracteata against serpent bites.

An

intoxicating spirit is obtained from the root of Cissampelos obtecta (Royle); that of Cissampelos glabra is said to be extremely acrid. (Roxb.) The bark, wood, and leaves are also employed for the same purposes; the stalks and leaves of Tinospora cordifolia are much used as a tonic, in an infusion called in Bengal Pachána, while an extract of the stem, called Palo, is regarded as a diuretic. The bark of Chondodendron convolvulaceum (Uva del monte), is employed as a febrifuge in Peru. Endlicher states that the bark of some species is used for dyeing yellow. Wight says that extract of Galuncha, so much recommended in India as a febrifuge, may be prepared from the bruised stems of Tinospora verrucosa and cordifolia; the young shoots of the latter are a powerful emetic. The wood and bark of Coscinium are regarded as furnishing

Fig. CCXIII.-Cocculus macrocarpus-after Wight. 1. flower; 2. a petal and stamen; 3. a cluster of fruit; 4. seed; 5. section of ditto showing embryo.