MENISPERMUM 



239 



Powder. Very light brown; tracheae from 0.030 to 0.150 mm. 

 in width, marked with slit-like simple pores or with elliptical bordered 

 pores, frequently with the transverse walls remaining; wood fibers 

 narrow, strongly lignified and with numerous large simple pores 

 and frequently tracheid-like, i.e., possessing bordered pores; bast 

 fibers long, narrow, with relatively thin, strongly lignified walls 

 marked by simple oblique pores; stone cells mostly cubical and with 

 rather thin, porous walls; starch-bearing medullary ray cells resem- 

 bling the parenchyma of cortex and pith, the latter being composed, 

 however, of a number of larger cells, the walls of which are more or 



E 

 K 



P 



FIG. 107. Menispermum. Transverse section through rhizome; E, epidermis; 

 K, sub-epidermal cork; C, cortex; B, bast fibers; S, sieve; ST, stone cells; 

 CA, cambium; T, large tracheae or vessels; W, wood fibers; M, medullary 

 ray cells; P, pith. 



less broken; starch grains mostly single, spheroidal and from 0.002 

 to 0.012 mm. in diameter; epidermal cells elongated and with nearly 

 straight, yellowish slightly porous walls; few yellowish-brown cork 

 cells, usually with adhering yellowish epidermis. 



Constituents. ic contains a bitter alkaloid, menispine, berberine 

 and starch. In addition it contains the alkaloid oxyacanthine, which 

 is also found in Berberis vulgaris of Europe and the West Indies. 



