AMPELIDACE^. 8^ 



Fo^ the morphology of the tendrils and the flowering parts, and the 

 reason of their position opposite the leaves reference may be made to any 

 text-book of Botany, 



The genus, as given in the Gen, Plant, and F.B.I, is a small 

 one of 230 species, scattered over the warmer parts of Asia, 

 Africa and Polynesia, but not much in America. 



A complete rearrangement of its species, and those of two other very 

 closely allied genera, cissus and ptekisanthes, and their division into 

 some ten genera has been proposed by Planchon and other continental 

 systematists. 



viTis was the Latin name for the Grape-vine and is connected wiih the 

 Celtic GVID or gvin 7/ieaKiHg a shrub tree and particularly the best of trees ^ 

 the one which yields wine^ Vid, vigue, wine, wein are of course all from 

 same root-word. 



Vitis anamalayana Bedd. Herb. ! (Parthenocissus of 

 Planchon) ; F.B.I, i 656, 144 ; Anamalai Wild Vine. 



Branchlets quite glabrous, younger smooth, older with 

 a few .minute lenticels. Leaves on the young shoots 

 simple, in older three-foliate, stalk I to 8 inches.* Leaf- 

 lets pubescent on the nerves of the under side,* elliptic 

 or obovate, sharply serrate (teeth % to J^ inch apart), 

 with long acumen of about I inch ; the lateral ones very 

 oblique and broader on the outer margin : conspicuously 

 reticulate below. Tendrils branched and bearing small 

 bracts opposite the branches. Flowers in loose cymose 

 panicles,* calyx small, five-lobed. Petals four or five, 

 oblong, with incurved tip, bent right back when open. 

 Disc fused to the ovary and hardly distinguishable 

 except by colour and the secretion of honey. Ovary very 

 thick with short stumpy style and minute stigma, t. 67. 



In sholas. Pulneys : on the Kodaikanal downs and below, 

 Nilgiris : apparently only on the edge of our area and below. 

 Anamalais. Fyson 3010, 1186. Bourne 285, 525,-""" 1359, 

 1549- 



In F.B.I, i 655-6 the Nilgiri and Pulnej plants (Wight Ic. t. 965) are 

 given under V. himalayana Brandy a Kashmir species. 



•Beddorae describes : petiole i to 2 inches ; leaflets ovalelanceolaie 

 their stalks with glands ; peduncles of cymes shorter than the leaves. 



