ivhick have their Sexes dioecious. 305 



leaves angled more acutely. Sweet has not registered, in his Hort. Brit., 

 1830, the kind, either as a species or as a variety. In Loudon's Hort. Brit,, 

 1830, it is registered as a species named " virginicum W. ; " and a reference is 

 there given to Dillenius's Hortus Elthamensis, 178. 219., for a figure of it. 

 On the sex of this form of Menispermum, whether it be a species (vir- 

 ginicum L. or virginicum JF.), or a variety of canadense (canadense /3 lobatum 

 Dec.'), Decandolle has not stated anything. "In Dillenius's figure, the female 

 is represented, as I have learned from the text appended to t. 1910. of Bot, 

 Mag. ; but whether this sex alone, I do not know. 



M. carolinianum i. Dr. Sims has noticed in the text to t. 1910, o? Bot, 

 Mag. that Linnaeus has expressly stated that the fruit of his carolinianum L. 

 is red. 



M. dauricum. 



De CandoUe has stated {Syst. i. 541.), in his description of this species, some 

 particulars upon the male flowers, and remarked of the female ones that he 

 has not seen them. 



M. smilacinum. 



De Candolle has stated that the female sex is unknown ; that is, not any 

 notice of it is registered in the published works on botany. Hence, we learn 

 that the figure of this species in the Encyclop, of Plants, No. 13999, which has 

 doubtless been copied from Jacquin's figure, represents the male sex ; and, on 

 inspecting the figure of the flower with a lens, some stamens are shown. Of 

 which ever sex the plants of M. ^railacinum which are cultivated in Britain 

 may be, the fact of their flowering is not registered in either Sweet's Hortus 

 Britanniciis or Loudon's ; hence it may be that this species has not yet flowered 

 in Britain. It might be well to subject it to the mode of culture for inducing 

 flowering recommended by E. B. in p. 19. I have placed M. smilacinum in 

 this list of hardy dicecious-sexed species of plants from having known of a 

 plant of it (by the synonymous name Cissampelos smilacina) living some 

 years in the Cambridge Botanic Gai'den, led up wires in the front of the con- 

 servatory, outside. 



M. Lyonz Ph. 



Both sexes of this are noticed in the description in De Candolle. Which 

 of them is, or, are both of them, living in Britain ? — The deciduous-leafed 

 ligneous kinds of Menispermum are interesting shrubs in their twining habit, 

 and in the beauty of their peculiar foliage. They have not showy flowers ; .but 

 the pendulous compound clusters of those of the male of M. canadense, of a 

 pale yellow colour, mainl}' from the numerous exserted anthers of this colour, 

 are elegant and ornamental. The flowers of the female plants are less orna- 

 mental, but it may be that these have the finer foliage. 1 have as ground for 

 this idea only the impression stated under the notice of the two female 

 plants, in the Cambridge Botanic Garden ; M. canadense, male, is registered 

 as flowering in June and July, and assuming that the males of all the kinds 

 flower, say in summer, the proportion of ornament which their flowers, more 

 conspicuous than the flowers of the females, would then supply, would render 

 these desirable for decoration in summer time; while the drupes which the 

 female plants would be likely to bear were they stationed in the society of 

 plants of the other sex (would they bear any, even any whose seeds were de- 

 void of embryos, if they stood solitary?) would render them interesting in 

 autumn when their drupes had become ripened. A dried drupe of the plant 

 which Mr. Loudon saw bearing fruit in Lee's nursery late in October, 1834, 

 is of a black colour, suiFused with a slight glaucous bloom, is about three 

 eighths of an inch across, not spherical, but with flattened sides, not quite 

 orbicular, from a straightness about the point of its attachment to the pedicel ; 

 wrinkled, probably from shrinking in drying. The fruit of M. carolinianum L. 

 is, LinuEeus has stated, of a red colour. (Dr. Sims in Curt. Bat. Mag. t. 1910, 

 in the text.) The drupe of M. Lyoni is, Pursh has stated, black and large; 

 this species is stated (De C. Si/st. i. 541 .) to be a herbaceous, not a ligneous one. 



Vol. XL— No. 63. z 



