132 Mr. J. Mlers on the Menispermacese. 



from ^ to 1|^ incli long, the ultimate pedicels being 1 line long. 

 In the female plant, the leaves are 7 inches diam., the lobes 

 3-4 inches long ; the petiole is 7^ inches long, slender, swollen 

 and tortuous at base ; the fructiform raceme is 5 inches long, 

 with eight or nine simple alternate pedicels 3 lines long ; drupe 

 10 lines long, 8 lines diam., semiglobose, obsoletely stipitated at 

 base ; putamen as before described. 



3. Jateorhiza. 

 The root of the typical species on which this genus is founded 

 was known for a vei'y long period in commerce under the name 

 of Calumba ; but the plant that produced it remained quite in 

 obscurity until Sir William Hooker published his interesting 

 account of it in the 'Botanical Magazine,' tab. 2970, 2971, 

 under the name of Cocculus palmatus. On the examination 

 of its male and female flowers, as well as of its seed, I found that 

 it constituted a new and valid genus, to which the name of 

 Jateorhiza was given, on account of the medicinal properties of 

 its root. In 1851, in my " Notes on Menispermacese," I gave a 

 very short outline of its leading characters, having two years 

 previously prepared a more ample diagnosis of the genus and 

 the characters of a new species, at the request of Dr. Hooker, 

 which he published in his ' Niger Flora.' The plants of the 

 genus, natives of intertropical Africa, are all climbers, distin- 

 guished by a very peculiar habit, having very large deeply lobed 

 leaves, upon very long petioles, and clothed with long strigose 

 hairs ; their inflorescence is in long slender racemes ; the fruit 

 is a drupe containing a putamen much resembling that of Odon- 

 tocarya, and which in like manner is covered with a dense 

 hairy coating imbedded in the fleshy mesoderm. In the struc- 

 ture of its putamen, and the form of its embryo, imbedded in 

 partially ruminated albumen, it quite conforms with the other 

 genera of the Heteroclinieae. The bitter and tonic qualities of 

 Caluraba-root are supposed to be owing to the presence of a 

 peculiar principle allied to cinchonine, and called calumbine, 

 the exact nature of which is not fully ascertained. 



Jateorhiza, nob. — Flores dioici. Masc. Sepala 6, ovata, 2- 

 seriata, exteriora paulo minora, sestivatione imbricata. Pe- 

 tala 6, ovata, sepalis paulo breviora, apice truncata, lateribus 

 introflexis stamina tegentia. Stamina 6, petalis opposita et 

 subsequilonga ; filamenta carnosa, apice valde tumida ruguloso- 

 punctata subito refracta, et extrorsum antherifera; antherce 

 globoso-4-lob8e, intus 4-loce]lat0e, rima horizontali 2-valvatim 

 hiantes. Ovaria rudimentaria 3, centralia, punctiformia. — 

 Foem. Sepala ut in masc. Petala cuneato-obovata, crassius- 



