Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacese. 21 



Ovarium solitarium, gibboso-orbiculare, 1-loculare, loculo lu- 

 nato; ovulum unicum, loculo conforme, funiculo brevi e medio 

 faciei ventralis appensum. Stylus brevis. Stigma breviter 3- 

 fiduni, laciniis linearibus^ sulcatis^ reflexis. Drupa subglobosa, 

 stigmatepersistente ad hilum proximo notata,carnosa; jow^owen 

 tenuiter osseum, late subovatum, compressum, peripheriam 

 versus utrinque spinis obtusis recurvo-hamatis in seriebus 3 

 circa condylum hippocrepicis concentrice dispositis echinatum, 

 1-loculare, loculo lunato; condylus disciformis, excentralis, 

 utrinque concavus, imperforatus, medio stria longitudinal! 

 sulcatus ; semen loculo conforme ; embryo ignotus. 

 Trutex in regionibus Himalaya scandens; folia majuscula, vix 

 peltata, oblonga, imo cordata, a medio sensim angustiora, 

 apice acuta, e basi 7-nervia, coriacea, subtus pubescentia, 

 petiolo tereti, limbo breviore : inflorescentia ($ et ^ racemi- 

 formi, paniculata, pubescens, ramis alternis, divaricatis, iterum 

 divisis, bracteolatis ; flores minimi, pedicellati, glabri. 



The single species will be described in the third volume of my 

 * Contributions to Botany' : — 



1. Peraphora robusta, nob.; — Cyclea populifolia, H, ^ Th. Fl. 

 Ind. i. 202; — Menispermea, Griffiths in Itin. Bootan, ii. 

 114 & 165 ; Icon. Boot. tab. 22 & 23 ;— v. s. in hb. Mus. 

 Brit, et Lemann, ? , Bhootan (Griffiths, 1732) ; in hb. 

 Hook, c? & ? , Sikhim (Hook. & Th.), Bhootan (Griffiths, 

 1732). 



33. Perichasma. 



I propose this genus for a plant, belonging to the tropical 

 African Flora, which offers many peculiar characters. Although 

 the number of its floral parts corresponds with that of Stephania, 

 the entire aspect of the plant proclaims that it cannot belong to 

 that genus, as does that oiClambus for a similar reason. Its slender 

 branches, with very distant axils, are furnished with long, patent, 

 simple hairs, which I have never seen in any species of Stephania ; 

 its leaves are larger, and, though peltate, are pilose on both sides, 

 and their margins are furnished with a strong marginal nerve, 

 which is indented into several rounded lobes or large crenatures, 

 and they are supported upon unusually long and slender petioles. 

 The inflorescence, instead of being, as in Stephania, a compound 

 umbel rarely exceeding an inch or two in length, is here a very 

 slender pendent raceme a foot and a half long, with numerous 

 distant, short, alternate branches, which are again and again 

 alternately divided : in all these respects the general habit of the 

 plant is more in harmony with some species of Cyclea. The 

 flowers are very minute, pedicellated, with six oblong, subacute 



