16 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLAXTS. 



IV. CISSAMPELOS SEEIES. 



Cissampelos 1 (figs. 22-30) has dioecious flowers. The males 

 (fi^s. 22-24) are regular and hermaphrodite and tetramerous, with 

 a double perianth. The outer whorl is a calyx of four valvate sepals, 

 within which is a sort of short cupule of a single piece." The 

 androceum is represented by a short vertical column, expanding 

 above into a discoidal platform ; on the rim of this are borne four 

 horizontal anther-cells 3 of transverse dehiscence. The female flower 

 (figs. 27, 28) bears on top of a little club-shaped pedicel, one single 

 unilateral sepal, a small superposed petal, 4 entire or bifid, 5 and a 

 carpel articulated at the base, and consisting of a one-celled ovarj'- 

 tapering above into a style with three stigmatiferous branches or 

 teeth, whereof two are superposed to the petal and sepal (figs. 

 27, 2S). It is on the same side that is found the parietal placenta, 

 which when adult 6 supports a descending subanatropous ovule, 

 whose micropyle looks upwards and away from the placenta. The 

 fruit is a sub-globular or flattened-orbiculate campylotropous drupe, 

 with the cicatrix of the style near its base. Its stone is compressed, 

 tuberculate behind, with hollowed sides, and an imperfect false 

 septum projecting inside, on whose convexity is moulded the horse- 

 shoe-shaped seed, whose linear embiyo is surrounded by a fleshy 

 albumen. Cissampelos consists of shrubs, usually climbing, rarely 

 humble and erect with alternate, entire or incised leaves. The 

 flowers are small and numerous, forming axillary supra-axillary or 

 lateral fascicled leaves. The male racemes are much ramified, con- 



1 L., Gen., n. 1138. — J., Gen., 2S5. — Lame., tetrandrous; the cells alternate with the petals; 



Diet., v. 9, Suppl., iv. 299 ; III., t. 830. — Sw., the pollen has the same form as in Menisper- 



Observ., t. 10, fig. 5. — Dttp.-Th., in Jov.rn. macece in C. mauritiana and orbiculata, accord- 



Bot., ii. 65, t. 3, 4.— DC, Syst., i. 352 ; Prodr., ing to H. Mom. 



i. 100. — Spach, Suit, a Buffon, viii. 23. — Endl., * This has often been termed a sepal, what we 



Gen., n. 4695. — B. H., Gen., 37, 962, n. 21. — describe as such being then regarded as a bract. 

 Caapeba Plum., Gen., 33, t. 29. — Adass., Fam. 5 Specially bifid with the species from Mada- 



des PI., ii. 357. — Antizoma Miebs, in Ann. Nat. gascar, wherefrom Miebs took the type of his 



Hist., ser. 2, vii. 41; ser. 3, xvii. 266. — Disso- genus Dissopetalum. Hence the hypothesis that 



petalum Miebs, in Ann. Nat. Hist., ser. 3, xvii. the petal of Cissampelos, even when entire, con- 



267. sists of two leaves. 



'-' It is sometimes entire, sometimes crenulate, 6 At first there are two ovnles; and that 



often rather fleshy in consistency. It has been which disappears more or less completely mav 



frequently described as a gamopetalous corolla. persist even very long in certain species, such as 



3 These, perhaps, represent only two anther C. Pareira (fig. 26). 

 cells ; the androceum is generally termed di- or 



