MOONSEED FAMILY MENISPERMACEAE 
MOONSEED 
Menispermum canadense L. 
This Moonseed is a woody plant that climbs by twining 
around any support it can find. It grows along streams and forest 
borders or in rather open woods throughout the eastern half of 
the United States and south- 
ern Canada, abundant in 
some localities and rare in 
others. 
The leaves are quite vari- 
able but usually peltate and 
3-7-lobed. They are slender 
petioled and broadly ovate, 
being 4-8 inches wide. 
The flowers are dioecious 
and bloom in June and July. 
Both forms are borne in loose 
clusters in the axils of leaves 
and are greenish white or 
yellowish white and quite 
small. Each flower has 4-8 
sepals and 6-8 short petals. 
The staminate form has 12-24 
stamens, and the pistillate 
2-4 pistils and usually a few 
sterile filaments. 
The fruits ripen in Sep- 
tember as purplish blue or 
black drupes which are cov- 
ered with a waxy bloom and resemble small grapes, but they are 
not edible. The stone of the fruit becomes curved in maturity so 
that it is more or less half-moon shaped and the cause of the 
plant’s common name. 
The Scarlet Moonseed, Cocculus carolinus (L.) DC., is a low 
straggling climber found only in the southern part of the state. 
Several minutely hairy stems rise 4-8 feet from the root crown, 
bearing alternate heart-shaped leaves, downy beneath. The small 
greenish flowers are in panicles and give way to brilliant coral red 
' drupes supposedly poisonous. 
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