2 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermaceae. 



Nepmthacea, Aristolochiacea, Piperacece. &c. On this account, 

 many years ago^ Professor Lindley separated these families from 

 Exogens, under the name of Homogens, the leading feature of 

 which was then believed to be, that, "instead of their wood 

 being formed by zone after zone, season after season, as is the 

 case in the great mass of Exogens, they never have more than 

 one zone of woody matter, to whatever age they may have 

 arrived/' This conclusion was, however, soon abandoned, as 

 the existence of more zones than one was fully proved. I have 

 frequently seen several annular rings in the stems of Menisper- 

 macecB ; and Gardner found one, in Ceylon, in which he counted 

 more than forty distinct concentric zones; but such instances 

 are comparatively rare. It would be needless to detail the 

 structure of the wood in this family, as the subject has been 

 ably demonstrated by Decaisne and others, and as there is little 

 novel information to offer respecting it. 



The leaves in the plants of this order are constantly alternate, 

 petioled, and always without stipules ; but in many cases the 

 petiole, finally deciduous, is articulated upon a prominent pulvi- 

 nate cup, on the upper margin of which, adjoining the stem, is 

 seen a budlike process, appearing as if a pair of stipules had 

 embraced the cup, and had become agglutinated to it and the 

 stem : this must not be confounded with the gemma of a nascent 

 branch or flower-stem, which in most instances is supra-axillary. 

 In the genus Antizoma, the pulvinate process just mentioned, 

 at its articulation with the petiole, is elongated in the form of a 

 spur, so that it bears the appearance of a short spine. The 

 petiole is often much swollen and tortuous at its base, and, being 

 suddenly bent back, it performs the office of a tendril in sup- 

 porting the young climbing branches. Its insertion into the 

 blade of the leaf is either peltate or palate. In the former case 

 the point of union is never quite central, but always more or less 

 excentric, sometimes approaching the margin, where the leaf is 

 more or less truncated or cordate. The palate insertion, how- 

 ever, is more frequent, when the petiole, at its junction with the 

 midrib, often subtends a considerable angle with the plane of 

 the leaf, and is commonly much swollen at that extremity by an 

 enlargement which the French botanists call a hourrelet. The 

 leaves vary greatly in form, substance, and texture, and have 

 generally, but not always, three, five, or more nerves springing 

 from the point of insertion of the petiole : they are generally 

 entire on the margin, but sometimes are sinuous or distinctly 

 lobed, more rarely sinuately dentate, or cleft into palmate seg- 

 ments, or (in Burasaia) divided into three sessile leaflets on the 

 summit of a long petiole. 



The inflorescence varies in different genera, being chiefly 



