264 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacez. 
p. 206, et quoad inflorescentiam in tab. 37. fig. 4.—In Su- 
rinamo, ad Paramaribo. 
63. DiscrPpHANIA. 
This is another genus of Dr. Hichler’s, described in Martius’s 
‘Flora Brasiliensis,’ the type being a plant from the river 
Amazonas, which bears a very strong resemblance to a Jateorhiza. 
It is a climbing plant, strigosely pilose in every part, with some- 
what ovate leaves, deeply cordate, leaving a broad sinus between 
two rounded basal lobes, and divided at its summit into three 
almost parallel lanceolate- oblong segments ; they are 5-7-nerved 
at base, on a petiole three-fourths of the length of the blade. 
It has one or two supra-axillary racemes with a slender rachis as 
long as the petiole, very pilose, spicated, with many alternate, 
approximated sessile flowers; each flower rises out of a small 
pilose bract, is glabrous, depressed- globose or subtrigonous in 
the bud; it has six equal sepals in two series, which are subequal, 
elliptic, and membranaceous; six equal petals, much shorter 
than the sepals, the three exterior twice the breadth of the three 
inner ones, all extremely thick and fleshy, closely compacted 
and depressed into a subtrigonoid form, leaving a hollow in the 
centre for the stamens, which thus appear sunk within a fleshy 
disk, nearly as in Anomospermum: in the centre are three free 
stamens, with almost obsolete filaments, each having a broad 
fleshy connective bearing two oval separated anther-cells dor- 
sally adnate upon it, and each bursting introrsely by a longitu- 
dinal furrow. The position of the genus is yet quite uncertain. 
Dr. Eichler places it near Tinospora, probably on account of the 
resemblance of its leaves to those of Jateordiza: it differs from 
it and all the genera of the Heteroclinee in having only three 
stamens; in the monadelphous character of the stamens it re- 
sembles Chasmanthera, Parabena, and Odontocarya, belonging 
to that tribe, which have six united filaments; while in its 
three monadelphous stamens it approaches Sarcopetalum, De- 
tandra, Syrrhonema, Rhaptonema, Desmonema, and Somphoxylon. 
DiscipHaniA, Eichl.—Flores dioici. Masc. Sepala 6, biserialia, 
subzequalia, elliptica, membranacea, glabra. Petala 6, multo 
breviora, biseriata, 3 interiora paulo angustiora, omnia cras- 
sissime carnosa, valde depressa, compacta, et discum trigo- 
noideum mentientia. Stamina 3, centralia, libera; filamenta 
brevissima, fere obsoleta, in connectivum latum carnosum 
expansa; anthere 2- lobe, lobis segregatis, ovatis, dorso semi- 
immersis, singulis rima longitudinali introrsum dehiscentibus. 
Frutex Brasilia septentrionalis scandens, undique strigoso-pilosus ; 
folia subovata, profunde cordata, apice incisu-trilobata, lobis 
