26 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



copious yellowish-white juice. 1 Thirdly, Anamirta, like Menispermum, 

 and many other genera of the same group, has two kinds of cells in 

 the adult pith, one soft and full of gas when old, the others isolated 

 or collected into small islets, transformed into rounded, elongate, or 

 fusiform sclerous sacs, with very thick and solid, highly refractive 

 walls, perforated by a large number of well-marked simple or ramified 

 canals, by which they communicate with one another, or with the 

 ordinary cells of the pith. No doubt these cells, which have been 

 for some time past so frequently observed in the chief so-called 

 polycarpic orders {Magnoliacece, Rosacea, Lauracece, &c.) are the active 

 organs of a special secretion ; for they are seen here as elsewhere to 

 be usually filled with a granular more or less coloured liquid. 



Affinities. — Menispermacece show manifold affinities with Lau- 

 racece, Magnoliacece (chiefly through ScMzandrece), Anonacece, and 

 Myristicacece, Berberidacece (through the series Lardizabalece), and 

 lastly Euphorbiacece. Of the Lauracece they have the small and usually 

 inconspicuous flowers, with an almost constantly trimerous perianth 

 in both groups. True, the carpels are solitary in Lauracece, which 

 only occurs in such exceptional cases as Cissampelos among Meni- 

 spermacece ; and on the other hand, the anthers of the latter order 

 open by clefts, not valves. Moreover the floral receptacle is concave 

 in the former order, convex in the latter. But these differences lose 

 in importance when we reflect that Laurads are really only a part of 

 a larger natural group, where with valvicidal anthers may be found 

 a polycarpellary gynseceum and a scarcely cupulate floral receptacle. 

 The habit is sometimes the same in both groups. The non-climbino- 

 species of Cocculus, such as C. laurifolius, have the aspect and foliage 

 of certain Lauracece ; and among these last the llligerece thoroughly 

 recall Burasaia in the form of their digitate leaves. The true diffe- 

 rence between the groups is in their ovules, solitary in Laurads ; 

 usually, if not constantly, geminate at first in Menispermads : here 

 too they are descending with the micropyle extrorse ; there it looks 

 inwards. Among Magnoliads the ScMzandrece have far more of the 

 characters of the Menispermads, notably the convexity of the re- 

 ceptacle, the diclinism of the flowers, the direction and number of 

 the ovules, the habit, with sarmentose stems and exstipulate leaves. 



H. Ex., in Adansonia, is. fase. 12. 



