304 Notes a7id Enquiries on certain Plmits 



Tetranthdi'a. This genus of the Zaurlneas is placed, in Loudon's Hortus 

 Britannicus, 1830, in the Linnsean class Enneandria, order Monogynia. In 

 Sweet's Hortus Britannicus, it is referred to the Linnsean class Dice^cia, order 

 Enneandria. If the latter reference be correct, its species, of which eight are 

 given in Loudon's Hort. Brit., four in Sweet's Hort. Brit., are addible to 

 iaurus nobilis as so many more dioecious-sexed species of iaurinese. 



In the structure of the anther in the iaurinege, a very interesting point, 

 one that the student of botany should take the first opportunity to make him- 

 self acquainted with by examination, is, that each cell of the anther opens (to 

 admit the disengagement of the pollen) by a longitudinal valve, which separates 

 in the order of from its base to its apex, and remains attached by this latter 

 point. The cells of most anthers open by a simple separation of a seam or 

 suture ; but in the Atherospermeae, Zaurinese, and Berberidece, by adaptation 

 of a specific structure, like that described. In the £'ricaceae, each cell of the 

 anther opens by a terminal pore or cleft ; and similarly in some other plants. 



MenispermacecB. 



Menispermum canadense. 



The male of M. canadense. The figure of M. canadense in Curtis's Bot. 

 Mag., t. 1910., i-epresents the male sex of it; and Dr. Sims has noted in the 

 text, that " the Canadian moon-seed has been long cultivated in our gardens, 

 but we have never seen any but male plants," The figure had been derived 

 from a plant which had flowered in July, 1815, in the garden of John Walker, 

 Esq., of Arno's Grove. I have not known of any but male plants ; these 

 were in the Cambridge Botanic Garden, and at the botanic garden at Bury 

 St. Edmunds, and in some garden in, I believe, either Suffolk or Norfolk, out 

 of which the Rev. G. R. Leathes had brought a flowering specimen, with, 

 perhaps, a plant, to the Bury Botanic Garden. Of the plants of this sex, 

 previously established in the Bury Botanic Garden, it is likely that the original 

 stock had been derived from the Cambridge Botanic Garden. The collection 

 of the former garden had been from time to time extensively enriched from the 

 collection of the latter. 



The female of M. canadense : is this" living in Britain ? De Candolle has 

 described (Regni Veget. Syst. Nat., i. 540.) its flowers to be few, disposed in 

 the mode of a corymb, not of a panicle or raceme, as those of the male are; 

 their pedicels shorter than those of the male flowers j ovaries, from two to 

 four. He has described the fruit of all menispermums to be a berried drupe, 

 roundishly kidney-shaped, one-seeded. 



Three female plants of Menispermum, whether of one, two, or three spe- 

 cies, and whichever this species is, or these species are, exist, or did lately 

 exist, in the following places : — 



One plant in Lee's nursery. Hammersmith, Middlesex. Mr. Loudon saw 

 there, late in October, 1834, a plant of Menispermum with fruit upon itj 

 consequently a female plant. One fruit off this plant, now by me in a dried 

 state, I have noticed farther in p. 305. [It is called M. canadense at Lee's, 

 May 26.] 



Two plants in the Cambridge Botanic Garden ; where one is labelled Meni- 

 spermum virgfnicum, the other Menispermum carolinum. I have seen these 

 two plants in flower; not since 1832, perhaps not so lately; but it is probable 

 that both still exist and are flourishing there, as formerly. Each of these two 

 plants had, if I have remembered rightly, a strong likeness to the other : they 

 might be only of one kind. Each had, I think, the larger of its leaves ampler 

 than the larger of those of a plant of canadense, male, which stood near them ; 

 and they had their leaves with more prominent and more acuminate lobes. 

 I think that a circle 12 ft. or so in diameter would include the points which 

 the three plants occupied ; and that the three plants flower at one time, or 

 nearly so, the male one, perhaps, the earliest : yet 1 know not whether the 

 two female plants have ever borne fruit. 



M. virginicum L. 



De Candolle has deemed (^Syst. Nat., i. 540.) this a variety of M. canadense, 

 and has named it " M. canadense ^ lobatum," and has defined it as having its 



