10. . MENISPERMACES (Harv.) [ Homocnemia. 
sometimes six or more, separate or connate ; ovules solitary, mostly 
amphitropous ; styles terminal subulate. Fruits drupaceous, oblique 
or crescent-shaped ; putamen indurated, horseshoe-shaped, the seed 
filling up the cavity. Albwmen variable in quantity, sometimes none ; 
embryo curved, cotyledons either divergent or close. 
Climbing or twining, slender, shrubby plants, with alternate, simple, often pal- 
mate-nerved, reticulately veined, entire leaves, without stipules. Flowers very 
green or white, in axillary cymes or racemes, rarely solitary, and almost always 
These plants are chiefly natives of the tropical parts of Asia and America ; very 
few comparatively are African. One is found in Canada, and two more in the ~ 
United States of N. America ; one in Eastern Siberia, and a few in China and 
Japan. Several species occur in Australia. Dr. Hooker (Ft. Ind. p. 174) computes 
the whole number at about 200. These are distributed by Mr. Miers (An. Nat. 
Hist. 2nd ser. Vol. VII. p. 33.) into forty genera, of which three, belonging to the 
tribe CISSAMPELIDE® are found in 8. Africa. I am indebted to Mr. Miers for MS. 
descriptions of Homocnemia and Antizoma, which I have freely used in drawing up 
the characters and descriptions. 
TABLE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN GENERA. 
> I, Homocnemia,— Fem. flower with four petals and four sepals. 
II. Cissampelos.— Fem. jl. with one petal, opposite the single sepal. 
. IIL. Antizoma.—“Fem, fl. with two petals.” Miers. 
* 
I, HOMOCNEMIA. Miers. 
“ Flowers dioecious. Male fl, unknown. Female; Sepals 4, obovate, 
hairy on the outside, opposite in pairs, imbricate in estivation. Petals 
4, much shorter than the sepals, roundish, fleshy, hypogynous. Stamens 
none. Ovary solitary, ovate, on a short stipe, compressed, with a longi- 
tudinal furrow on one side, unilocular, uniovulate ; the ovule attached 
a : Mog placenta. Style very short, obtusely emarginate.” fiers 
. in litt. 
A vine-like twiner, with peltate leaves ; and flowers in axillary, compound umbels. 
The generic name is compounded of ‘ouos, like and xvnuta, the spoke of a wheel ; in 
allusion to the umbellate inflorescence. 
1. H. Meyeriana (Miers MSS.) and in An. Nat. Hist. Ser. 2. vol. 
VIL p. 40. Cissampelos umbellata, E. Mey, ! in Herb. Drege. 
Has. On the Omsamwubo, Natal 1,000-2,000ft. Feb. Drege! (Herb. Hooker.) 
_ Stems yoluble, distantly branched, striate, densely clothed with short, rusty 
pubescence, becoming subglabrous. Leaves on long petioles broadly peltate, ovate- 
orbicular, subacute, mucronulate, pubescent, many nerved, ‘and reticulated on the 
lower surface. Peduncles of the fem. fi. axillary, shorer than the les, 
umbellate ; umbel few-rayed, twice compounded, the pedicdls tomentose. Flowers 
minute ; sepals broadly obovate or rhomboid, subacute, keeled at back, thrice a8 
pen as the mpery ee obtuse ar drapes orb, glabrous and 
quite even.— Readily known from the S. African pl Order by its peltate 
leaves and umbellate flowers. — . 
| IL. CISSAMPELOS. Linn 
Flowers dioecious. Male: Sepals 4, separate. Corolla cupshaped, 
nearly entire, shorter than the sepals (composed of 4 confluent petals.) 
Stamens united into a central eee the summit and bear 
