15 



K. Ord. MENISPERMACEA\ 

 Tribe Leptogonetz. 



Genus Cissampelos,* Linn. B. & H., Gen. i, p. 37 ; BaiUi, iii; ' 

 p. 41 ; Miers, 1. c., p. 127. Species variously estimated at 

 18 or 70, found in the tropics and warm regions of baith^ 

 hemispheres. 



15, Cissampelos Pareira,f Linn., Sp. PL, ed. 1, p. 1031 (1753). 



Velvet Leaf. 



Syn. C. microcarpa, DC. C. clematidea, Presl. 



Figures. WoodviUe, t. 65; Nees, t. 367; Baill., 1. c., figs. 22-28; Des- 

 courtilz, PI. Antilles, iii, t. 201. 



Description. A woody climber or twiner with slender terete 

 stems of light open structure, and rarely reaching an inch 

 in diameter, covered with a light brown wrinkled bark, and 

 with thickened nodes at long intervals ; the young green shoots 

 elongated, slender, and whiplike, densely downy at the ends. 

 Leaves alternate, on longish slender petioles inserted more or 

 less within the margin of the blade, 1 2 inches long, nearly 

 orbicular, with an acute apex and faintly cordate base, entire, 

 palmately veined, smooth above, silky beneath or when young on 

 both sides, bright full green. Flowers dioecious, very small ; the 

 male in branched, solitary or fasciculate, rather dense panicles, 

 with filiform divaricate dichotomous branches ; the female stalked, 

 in fascicles of 5 or 6 in the axils of roundish, leafy, readily de- 

 ciduous bracts, laxly arranged on a slender axillary branch. Male 

 flowers : Sepals 4, spathulate-ovate, with long hairs outside, 

 entire, spreading ; petals combined into a cup-shaped 4-lobed 

 corolla ; stamen solitary (?), central, filament short, capitate at 

 the summit, bearing 4 anther-cells on its margin. Female 



* Named from KKTCTOQ, ivy, and ajUTrtXof , a vine ; from the appearance. The 

 KidW/*TtXo of Dioscorides was, of course, not this plant. 



f Pareira, so named by Linnams under the idea that this yielded Hie pareira 

 brava of commerce. 



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