15 CISSAMPELOS PAREIRA 



flowers : Sepal solitary, oval, hairy outside ; petal solitary oppo- 

 ; , . site \tne :sJptl< and like it in form and size or smaller, greenish- 

 . t c ^.whita; .pistil of .one carpel, ovoid, gibbous on the side opposite 

 : :<' J^'t^ -petal, 'densely silky, style short, stigmas 3, pointed, spreading, 

 ovary one-celled, with a single suspended ovule. Fruit a single 

 small, ovoid drupe, with the remains of the style near the 

 base, epicarp slightly fleshy, thin, pilose, endocarp (putamen) com- 

 pressed, transversely ridged and furrowed on the edge, hollowed 

 on the sides, cavity horse-shoe-shaped from the doubling-in of a 

 process of the endocarp. Seed strongly curved, filling the 

 cavity ; testa very thin, attached to the process ; embryo slender, 

 terete, much curved in the axis of the endosperm; cotyledons 

 linear, incumbent. 



Habitat. If we restrict this species as does Mr. Miers it is 

 found in the West Indian Islands and Central America only ; if 

 we follow the authors of the ' Genera Plantarum ' it is very 

 widely diffused over all the tropical regions of both hemispheres. 

 There is no occasion here to go into questions of the definition of 

 species, on different views of which this variance depends. The 

 plant of the West Indies, which appears to be very common in 

 most of the islands, and has been long familiar, is certainly the 

 form upon which Linnaeus founded the species. The plant was 

 introduced about 1780, and at Kew flowers in July and August. 



Lunan, Hort. Jamaic., ii, p. 254; Descourtilz, Fl. Ant., iii, p. 

 231 ; Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Indies, p. 10 ; Miers, 1. c., p. 139 ; 

 PI. Brit. India, i, p. 104; Brandis, Forest Fl. India, p. 10; 

 Fliick. & Hanb., Pharmacogr., p. 28; Lindl., Fl. Med., p. 372. 



Official Part and Name. PAEEIEJI RADIX; the dried root of 

 Cissampelos Pareira, Linn. (B. P.). The dried root (Pareirce 

 Radix) (I. P.). PAEEIEA, Pareira Brava ; the root of Cissampelos 

 Pareira (U. S. P.). 



Source of Pareira Brava. We have already stated under the head 

 of Chondrodendron tomentosum that this plant and not the official 

 plant now under notice is the source of the true Pareira Brava, 

 that is, of the root which was originally used under that name, and 



