Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacese. 21 



sepals is generally wanting. It is chiefly in the female plant, 

 and the structure of the putamen and seed, that the two genera 

 become utterly irreconcileable. 



The fruit of Cocculus is well distinguished : the putamen is 

 osseous, reniformly globular, slightly compressed, with a pecu- 

 liar grooved surface, and has a large excentric condyle, round 

 which the lunate or nearly cyclical cell extends; the con- 

 dyle is vertically divided by a complete septum, parallel to the 

 two faces, into two hollow chambers, each having an external 

 crescent-shaped aperture ; the seed is cyclical, flattened on its 

 inner side, and consists of simple albumen enclosing a nearly 

 annular embryo, with a narrow terete radicle half the length of 

 two fleshy subfoliaceous incumbent cotyledons, which are twice 

 its breadth. 



In Prof. Martius^s ^ Flora Brasiliana,' Dr. Eichler enumerates 

 two species, neither of which belongs to the genus. The first is 

 Cocculus Jilipendula, Mart.^ of which a drawing is given (/. c. 

 fasc. xxxviii. tab. 42. fig. 4) ; this shows clearly that I was quite 

 correct in considering it to be a species of Odontocarya (Contr. 

 Bot. iii. 65). The second is Cocculus enneandfus, Eichl., esta- 

 blished upon a Peruvian plant from the collection of Ruiz and 

 Pavon, of which the ^ flower only is figured (/. c. tab. 42. fig. 5) ; 

 this is considered by Dr. Eichler to be a variety of Cocculus 

 Carolinus that has strayed into Peru, and which, under another 

 soil and climate, has produced monstrous flowers. There appears 

 no reason for this improbable supposition, as that species has 

 never been seen beyond the limits of the United States. If it 

 be a monstrous flower, it is far more likely to be an abnormal 

 condition of some plant which we know to be growing in Peru 

 or its vicinity. The inference appears to me certain, that the 

 plant cannot belong to Cocculus, from which it diff'ers in having 

 an inner whorl of three stamens which stand alone, without 

 petals, in addition to the ordinary number of six perfect stamens 

 embraced by as many petals ; the anthers as they are described 

 are very different from those of Cocculus, as are also the petals, 

 whose .involuted lobes are lateral, not basal as in that genus. 

 Dr. Eichler gives no drawing of the plant ; but, from its de- 

 scription, it appears very likely to belong to the South-American 

 genus Odontocarya-, indeed, in the form of its cordate, nearly 

 3-lobed leaves, which are also membranaceous, it scarcely differs 

 from the diagnosis I have given of Odontocarya hederafolia (Con- 

 trib. Bot. iii. 64), a plant from Panama, which has a range as far 

 eastward as northern Brazil, and is therefore not unlikely to ex- 

 tend to the much shorter distance southward of Upper Peru, 

 where it is only supposed that Ruiz's plant was obtained ; for 

 no locality is given with the specimen. It is therefore reason- 



