164 ORD. VIII. Sarmentacec. 
SMILAX CHINA. CHINESE SMILAX, 
SYNONYMA. China(radix). Pharm. Geoff. V.2.p.30. Dale. 
167. Alston. 7. 409. Lewis. 226. Edinb. New Dispens. 170. 
Murray. i. 339. Bergius 803. China vulgaris off. Ger. Emac. 
1618. Bauh. Pin. 296. Park. Theat. 1578. , Ray. Hist. 657. 
Smilax minus spinosa, fructu rubicundo, radice virtuosa China 
dicta. Kempf. Amen. 781. t.782. Conf. Sam. Gottl. Gmelin’s 
Reise durch Russland, T. iii. p. 32. t. 36. 3 
Sp. Ch. S. caule aculeato teretiusculo, fol. inermibus ovato-cordatis 
quinquenerviis. 
ROOT perennial, ligneous, beset with irregular knobs; externally 
_ of a reddish brown colour, internally paler. Stems long, roundish, 
slender, jointed, woody, prickly, climbing, branched, furnished 
with claspers. Leaves smooth, ovate, or heart-shaped, pointed, five 
~ nerved, placed o1 on tenia Flowers male and female on different 
plants, in Mowish “white, “upon a-slender common 
footstalk, arising at he axille of the leaves. The calyx of the 
male flower is divided into six leafits, which are oblong, reflexed, 
and appear to occupy the place of the corolla, which ie wanting. 
Filaments six, simple, furnished with oblong anthere. The female 
flower differs from the male, in having no stamina, but is supplied 
with an ovate germen, supporting three minute styles, terminated 
‘by oblong reflexed downy stigmata. Fruit a small round berry, 
of three cells; when ripe ofa a colour, and contains two round 
‘seeds. . 
This species of Smilax is tolerably well described by Kaempfer 
and Rumphius, but still more fully by Gmelin. It is a much taller 
shrub than the S. Sarsaparilla, and grows to the greatest perfection 
in China, Japan, and in some parts of Persia, It is also a native of 
Jamaica, but the occidental species has been accounted less effica- 
