142 MEXISPERMACEAE. 



3. Annona reticulata L. Sp. PL 537. 1753. 



A small tree, sometimes 8 m. high, usually smaller, the young twigs puberu- 

 lent. Leaves oblong, oblong-lanceolate, or narrowly lanceolate, chartaceous, 

 8-15 cm. long, 2-4 cm. wide, puberulent when young, glabrous when old, 

 acuminate at the apex, narrowed at the base, the rather stout petioles 2 cm. 

 long or less; peduncles longer than the petioles; flowers greenish, about 2 cm. 

 long; sepals triangular-ovate, 2-3 mm. long; outer petals narrowly oblong, 

 puberulent; fruit globose, 8-12 cm. in diameter, yellowish brown, glabrous, 

 coarsely reticulated, the pulp yellowish, the oblong, brown seeds shining. 



Sink-holes, Great Bahama at Eight Mile Rocks : West Indies. Widely culti- 

 vated. Custard Apple. Catesby, 2 : pi. 86. 



Family 4. MENISPERMACEAE DC. 



Moonseed Family. 



Vines, shrubs or trees, with alternate leaves, no stipules, and small 

 dioecious panicled racemose or eymose flow r ers. Sepals 4-12, or fewer. 

 Petals 6, imbricated in 2 rows, sometimes fewer, or none. Stamens about 

 the same number as the petals or fewer. Carpels 3-x (generally 6), 1- 

 ovuled, separate; styles commonly recurved. Fruit drupaceous. Fmbryo 

 long, curved. About 55 genera and 150 species, mainly of tropical dis- 

 tribution, a few extending into the temperate zones. 



1. CISSAMPELOS L. Sp. PL 1031. 1753. 



Slender vines, often high-climbing, the leaves broad, mostly entire and 

 cordate, palmately veined, the staminate flowers cymose-paniculate, the pistil- 

 late clusters racemose, bracted. Staminate flowers with 4 sepals, the petals 

 united below into a cup, the 2-4 anthers sessile on the peltate top of the 

 stamen-column. Pistillate flowers with a rudimentary scale-like perianth of 1 

 sepal and 1 petal and a single carpel with a 3-cleft or 3-toothed style. Drupe 

 subglobose, convex; stone compressed, tubercled on the back, concave on both 

 sides. [Greek, ivy-grape.] Perhaps 25 species, of tropical America and trop- 

 ical and southern Africa. Type species: Cissampelos Pareira L. 



1. Cissampelos tomentosa DC. Syst. 1: 535. 1818. 



'Climbing, often 5 m. long or longer, the young branches, petioles, inflor- 

 escence and under leaf-surfaces densely tomentose. Leaves suborbicular, 2-10 

 em. broad, cordate or truncate at the base, rot peltate, the petioles 1-7 cm. 

 long; racemes of pistillate flowers 5-8 cm. long, the bracts orbicular, cordate 

 or subcordate, 5-15 mm. broad, the pedicels several at each bract, densely 

 tomentose, about 2 mm. long, the sepals about 1 mm. long; panicle3 of stami- 

 nate flowers 8 cm. long or less, the flowers usually very numerous, about 1 mm. 

 broad, on filiform short pedicels. 



Old fields and coppices, Andros, near Nicol's Town : Cuba ; Jamaica ; Mexico 

 and Central America. Velvety Cissampelos. 



