238 SCIENTIFIC AND APPLIED PHARMACOGNOSY 



MENISPERMACE^E, OR MOONSEED FAMILY 



A family of mostly tropical plants, being in the nature of climbing 

 or twining, frequently woody vines. The leaves are entire or lobed, 

 the flowers are small, white or green, and dioecious. The stems are 

 characterized in having broad primary medullary rays and in the 

 pericycle there is usually a continuous sclerenchymatous ring. The 

 tracheae are porous and very wide and associated with tracheid-like 

 wood fibers, i.e., possessing bordered pores. In certain of the genera 

 in which the stem is thick and woody an anomalous structure is 

 found consisting of several concentric rings of vascular bundles, 

 which either completely encircle one another or are developed excen- 

 trally; that is, more strongly on one side, as in Pareira. Calcium 

 oxalate usually occurs in the form of small rod-shaped or acicular 

 crystals, sometimes in aggregates or large solitary crystals. Both 

 glandular and non-glandular hairs may be present and peculiar hyda- 

 thodes, i.e., water-absorbing and water-excreting organs are observed 

 situated among the trichomes in Anamirta cocculus. Elongated 

 secretory sacs occur in the stems and petioles of Cissampellos, Jate- 

 orhiza and Anamirta. A sub-epidermal mucilaginous layer occurs 

 in a number of species. 



MENISPERMUM. Yellow Parilla or Canada Moonseed. The 

 dried rhizome of Menispermum canadense (Fam. Menisperma- 

 cese), a high-climbing vine indigenous to northern United States 

 and Canada and having broadly ovate, cordate and 3- to 7-lobed 

 leaves. The flowers are in panicles and the fruit is a bluish-black 

 berry. The rhizome is gathered, cut into convenient pieces and 

 dried. 



Description. Rhizome horizontal, cylindrical, much branched, 

 attaining a length of 1 or 2 M. and having a diameter from 2 to 

 20 mm.; externally yellowish to dark brown, longitudinally wrink- 

 led and somewhat scaly, having upon the upper surface at the nodes 

 a central bud in a nearly circular overground stem-scar, and scat- 

 tered roots arising from all portions of the rhizome; fracture of bark 

 short, wood tough and very fibrous; inner surface yellowish-white 

 with a thin bark, a broad porous radiating-wood, and a white pith 

 which is frequently hollow in the larger pieces; inodorous; taste 

 bitter and somewhat sweetish. Roots cylindrical, more or less 

 branching, from 1 to 10 cm. in length and from 0.5 to 2 mm. in diam- 

 eter, dark brown, tough, wiry. 



Inner Structure. See Fig. 107. 



