80 MELIOSMA MENZIESIA 



curiously stout, rigid branchlets. It is evidently quite a hardy tree, but has 

 not yet flowered in cultivation. It has the general aspect of a pinnate-leaved 

 sumach. 



MENISPERMUM. MOONSEED. MENISPERMACE^:. 



Climbing, woody or semi-woody plants, with alternate, peltate leaves, 

 and separate male and female flowers. Sepals six; petals six or eight; 

 stamens nine to twenty-four. The black or purple-black fruit encloses 

 one half-moon or crescent-shaped seed giving the popular name. The 

 plants spread rapidly by means of underground stems, and are easily 

 increased by division. Cocculus is nearly allied, but has the leaf-stalk 

 attached at the margin of the leaf, and only six stamens. 



M. CANADENSE, Linnaus. CANADIAN MOONSEED. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 1910.) 



A deciduous climber, producing a very dense tangle of smooth, slender, 

 twining shoots 12 or 15 ft. high. Leaves ovate to heart-shaped and roundish, 

 with usually three, five, or seven angular lobes ; strongly veined and pale 

 beneath, dark green above. Leaf-stalk slender, 3 to 4 ins. long, attached to 

 the blade near, but not at the base (peltate). Flowers numerous, incon- 

 spicuous, greenish yellow, borne on a slender, long-stalked raceme, one of 

 which is produced a little above each leaf-axil. Fruit in long loose racemes, 

 nearly black when mature, about the size of a black currant. Each fruit 

 contains one crescent-shaped seed. 



Native of Eastern N. America, where it is widely spread ; cultivated in 

 England since the end of the seventeenth century. Its stems although truly 

 woody have a herbaceous appearance, and do not live long. The exceptional 

 vigour of the plant and its habit of spreading rapidly by means of under- 

 ground suckers render it unsuitable for planting near delicate or slow-growing 

 shrubs, which it is apt to smother. But it makes a good summer covering for 

 a wall or summer-house, and is distinctly ornamental when in fruit. It can 

 be pruned back to the ground every winter. 



M. DAURICUM, De Candolle. DAVURIAN MOONSEED. 



Scarcely different from the American species in stem, leaf, and general 

 aspect, this can be recognised when in bloom by the flowers being more 

 closely packed together in a shorter raceme, and by the racemes being pro- 

 duced in pairs a little above each leaf-axil. The leaves have the same three 

 or five lobes, but the apex is usually more drawn out, the spaces between the 

 lobes are more deeply hollowed, and the stalk is attached to the blade farther 

 away from its margin. 



Native of N.E. Asia from Siberia to China, requiring the same conditions 

 and treatment as the American species. 



MENZIESIA PILOSA, fussteu. ERICACEAE. 



(M. globularis, Salisbury ; M. ferruginea var. globularis, Sims, Bot. Mag., t. 1571.) 



A deciduous shrub, 3 to 6 ft. high, rigid and erect in habit, the bark 

 pn the older branches hanging in loose shreds ; young shoots downy and 



