22 ‘ORD. VIII. Sarmentacez. coccULUS PALMATUS. 
man, for the discovery of the true plant, which produces this valuable root ; 
who, when at Mosambique, procured an entire offset, of a larger size than 
usual, (from the main root). This he brought with him to Madras in 1805, 
from which a male plant was raised in Dr. Anderson’s garden; and from 
this individual, Dr. Berry’s figure and description were made. The female 
plant had not been described at that period, but it was ascertained to belong 
to the natural order—Menispermex. The root is perennial, composed of a 
number of fasciculated, fusiform, somewhat branched, fleshy, curved, and de- 
scending tubers, of the thickness of an infant’s arm, clothed with a thin, 
brown, epidermis, marked, towards the upper part especially, with transverse 
warts; internally they consist of a deep yellow, scentless, very bitter flesh, 
filled with numerous parallel, longitudinal fibres or vessels. |The stems are 
annual, herbaceous, one or two proceeding from the same root, about the 
thickness of the little finger, twining, simple in the male plant, branched in 
the female, rounded, green; in the full grown plant, below thickly clothed 
_ with succulent longitudinal hairs, which are tipped witha gland. The leaves 
are alternate, the younger ones thin, pellucid, bright green, generally three- 
lobed; older ones remote, a span in breadth,'nearly orbicular in their cir- 
cumscription, deeply cordate, five to seven-lobed, the lobes entire, often de- 
flexed, wavy on the surface and margin, dark green above, paler underneath, 
hairy on both sides, with prominent nerves, and supported on round, hairy, 
foot-staiks, about as long as the leaves. 
In the male plant, the racemes are axillary, solitary, or two together, 
drooping, about as long as the petioles, compound, clothed with glandular 
hairs, and having at the base small deciduous bracteas. The calyx is smooth, 
consisting of six ovate, acute, nearly equal, leaves, arranged in a double 
series, The corolla is pale green; consisting of six oblong, free, petals, with 
involute margins, and recurved apices, arranged round a central, orbicular, 
disc or gland, in a single series. The jilaments are six, thick, shorter than 
_ the petals, with terminal, truncated, four-celled anthers ; \ the cells opening 
internally, and filled with linear, oblong grains of yellow pollen. In the 
Female plant, the racemes are also axillary, solitary, simple, patent, shorter 
than those of the male. The pedicels are furnished with minute, caducous, 
bracteas. ‘The sepals, or leaves of the calyx, are six, in two series ; three in- 
fenior, smal vt, ovate acute, subpatent, plane, glabrous. The petals are six, 
rarely eight, green, glabrous, shorter than the germens, and recurved at the 
