180 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermaeeae. 



identical with the typical species ; Wallich, however, regarded it 

 as distinct from that plant, making it a variety of C. Blume- 

 anum. It differs from the latter in its palate leaves and shorter 

 petioles, and from the former in their oblong and more pointed 

 form, with a different tomentum and shorter petioles. Its claims 

 to rank as a distinct species are strengthened by the considera- 

 tion of the far-distant country of its origin, and because the 

 two other species are quite locaL Its branches are covered with 

 woolly fulvous tomentum, and its leaves, which are gradually 

 narrower from the middle to the apex, are 8;^ inches long, 6 

 inches broad, on a petiole 2| inches long. 



3. Calycocarpum. 



This genus was established by Nuttall, in 1838, upon a plant 

 of the Western States of North America, the Menispermum Lyoni 

 of Pursh. It is well figured in Gray^s ' Genera of the United 

 States,^ but the details of the putamen and seed are incom- 

 plete. It is a slender climbing plant, having deeply cordate 

 5-lobed leaves, with sinuated margins, palately fixed upon a long 

 slender petiole ; the inflorescence is an axillary, elongated, slen- 

 der, racemose panicle, nearly as long as the leaf and petiole. 

 It differs from all others of the Heterocliniece in having its male 

 flowers provided with six sepals, no petals, and 12 free stamens 

 in two series ; its female flower has six sepals, six small fleshy 

 petals, six sterile stamens, and three or four sessile ovaries, with 

 a very short thick style and a multilaciniated spreading stigma. 

 Its drupe contains a meniscoid, orbicular, thin, chartaceous pu- 

 tamen, globose on the dorsal side, with a sharp apical spine ; it 

 is concave on the ventral face, furnished on its margin with a 

 number of soft sharp flattened teeth, and along the upper moiety 

 of the ventral face with a carinated longitudinal ridge similarly 

 toothed ; the hollow of this face forms a concave scutiform con- 

 dyle, which protrudes into the centre of the cell, and from its 

 upper part is suspended, by a very short funicle, the deeply 

 meniscoid seed ; the embryo is enclosed in the middle of nearly 

 simple albumen, which is marked on the inner face by transverse 

 lines where it is obsoletely ruminated ; the small radicle points 

 to the style near the vertex ; the cotyledons are flat, foliaceous, 

 oval, greatly divaricated ; they partly overlie each other in the 

 upper part, but are widely separated in their lower portion, the 

 albumen being there correspondiijgly 3-celled to contain them. 

 The genus is therefore marked by very salient characters. 



Calycocarpum, Nutt. — Flores dioici. Masc. Sepala 9, quorum 

 3 exteriora bracteiformia, 6 interiora multo majora, 2-serialia, 

 subsequalia, spathulato-oblonga, membranacea, sestivatione 



