132 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacec. 
each of the many species of Cissampelos here enumerated is 
very limited, so that they may be said to be nearly local—a cha- 
racter which almost universally prevails throughout the family. 
The species here collated have been divided into three groups, 
American, African, and Asian: these again are subdivided into 
peltate, subpeltate, and palate sections, according to the differ- 
ent modes of insertion of the petiole upon the blade of the leaf. 
This plan, though arbitrary, happens to agree with the local 
distribution of the species, and has been adopted solely with the 
view of affording facility to others in studying the species and 
in the more easy determination of the individuals. When the 
results here obtained have been examined and confirmed, it will 
be easy to arrange the species methodically into groups and 
sections marked by separate characters which will tend greatly 
to abbreviate the respective diagnoses. 
The plants throughout the genus are dicecious, the sexes 
being always distinct in different plants, except in two or three in- 
stances where moncecious flowers occur: in one the sexes are found 
in distinct racemes in the same individual; in another male and 
female flowers are seen in the same raceme; but, as they accord 
in the usual number of their floral parts, these exceptions have 
(like those in Ttdiacora) been retained in the genus; on the 
other hand, where a different number and disposition of the floral 
parts occur which, from their constancy, cannot be attributed to 
metamorphism, the species have been excluded, in order to pre- 
serve the uniformity and universality of the characters of Cissam- 
pelos. Thus, following the example of Cyclea, Clypea, Antizoma, 
&c., where this uniformity i is disturbed I have formed the genus 
Dissopetalum, in which two petals are always present in the fe- 
male flower, and also Peraphora, where the petal in the same sex 
is sometimes wanting, and where the floral envelopes are two deep 
bursiform sepals, and the putamen is echinated in a manner dif- 
ferent from that of Cissampelos. Clambus is also constituted asa 
genus distinct from Cissampelos, not only because it has six sepals 
and six petals in the male flower, but on account of the very 
different habit of its species, and the peculiar mode of venation 
of their leaves. 
CissamMPELos, Linn.— Flores dioici, rarius monoici. Mase. 
Sepala 4, rarius 5 vel 6, spathulato-obovata, vel sublanceo- 
lata, submembranacea, seepe eroso-denticulata et extus pilosa, 
patula, zstivatione imbricata. Petalwm unicum, cyathiforme, 
iterdum poculiforme, margine crenato, 4-lobum, carnosulum 
aut membranaceum. Stamen unicum, centrale; filamentum 
breve, filiforme, apice connectivum plus minusve disciforme pel- 
tatum margine antheriferum fulciens ; anthera e cellulis 4 vel 
