128 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacee. 
as it isnot the bird, but the nest, that is applied to culinary 
purposes. Some part of the description that he gives, however, 
of his salangana (which he implies is equal to the H. esculenta of 
Linneus) conveys a doubt as to the bird described by him being 
really a Collocalia, on the very same ground as Brisson’s bird, 
viz. the shortness of its wings, as M. Streubel remarks 
that ‘the wings almost overreach the extremity of the tail.” 
This character alone makes it difficult to reconcile it with 
what is thought to be the C. esculenta, or indeed with any of the 
species mentioned i in the foregoing Synopsis. 
XV.—On the Menispermaceee. 
By Joun Miers, F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. 
Tyee from vol. xiv. p. 374.] 
. CISsAMPELOS. 
This extensive and fees eenus is one of the oldest of 
the Menispermacee. ‘he plants, for the most part, are slender 
climbers, with woody branches ; but among the South American 
species there are several low shrubs with erect stems, scarcely more 
than 1 or 2 feet high, covered with imbricated leaves. The leaves 
seldom exceed a mediocre size, and are sometimes small; they 
are generally more or less orbicular, often reniformly cordate, 
and are either peltate or palate, rarely quite glabrous, with petioles 
either elongated or very short. The male infloresence is usually 
in slender axillary panicles, variously divided, often 3 or 4 fascicu- 
lated im each axil,where they are frequently accompanied by an 
elongated raceme with alternate axils, each bearing similar, but 
much shorter, fasciculated panicles, and bare of leaves, or having 
only a minute bract in their place: this raceme-like development 
is, properly speaking, a young florifercus branch with abortive 
leaves, as is proved by the frequent presence of regular leaves 
diminishing gradually to the size of minute bracts. The female 
raceme is elongated, generally solitary, or geminate in each axil, 
with a number of approximated large orbicular bracts (appearing 
like young leaves as they really are ), each bearing in its axil from 
three to ten fasciculated pedicellated flowers ; sometimes, however, 
these leaflets are wanting, when their place is supplied by diminu- 
tive bracteoles. The male flowers, always minute in size, consist 
of four, rarely five or six, oblong sepals, a single cup- -shaped petal, 
anda single stamen in the centre , with its anther usually 4-lobed, or 
where the lobes are constricted and 2-celled it appears 8- lobed, or 
by suppression of some of them 5—6-lobed, all the lobes fixed on 
the margin of a peltiform connective supported on a short slender 
5 . . . 
filament. The female flower, also minute in size, has only one 
