34 V, MENISPERMACE^. 



10. CISSAMPELOS, Linn. 

 (Fanciful resemblance to the ivy and the vine.) 



Sepals 4 (5 to 6), erose. Petals 4, connate, forming a 4-lobed cup. Anthers 

 4, connate, encircling the top of the staminal column, bursting transversely. 

 Female flowers : Eacemose, crowded in the axils of leafy bracts. Sepals 2 (or 

 sepal and petal 1 each), 2-nerved, adnate to the bracts. No staminodes. Ovary 

 1 ; style short, 3-fid or 3-toothed. Drupe ovoid, style-scar subbasal ; endocarp 

 horseshoe-shaped, compressed, dorsally tubercled, sides excavated. Seed curved ; 

 embro slender ; cotyledons narrow, half-terete, appressed. Suberect or climbing 

 shrub. Leaves often peltate. Male flowers cymose. 



The species of this genus are met with in all hot climates. 



1. C. pareira (so named under the idea that it yielded the pamira brum 

 of commerce), Linn. A lofty climber, the branehlets rarely glabrous. Leaves 1 

 to 4in. diameter, orbicular-reniform or cordate, usually peltate, obtuse and 

 mucronate, petiole long as the leaf or longer. Male cymes f to Hin. (sometimes 

 replaced by a shoot with small leaves and small axillary cymes), axillary or nearly 

 so, usually 2 to 3 superposed, decompound ; bracts minute, rarely foliaceous ; 

 peduncles long, slender, pubescent, tomentose or hirsute. Female racemes with 

 large reniform bracts, 1 or 2 axillary, the bracts lax or densely imbricate, 

 usually hoary, sometimes petiolated ; pedicels very short. Oyaries rarely glab- 

 rate. Drupes 2 lines diameter, subglobose, hairy, scarlet. 



Hab. ; Tropical scrubs. The root of this plant is employed in India as a mild tonic and 

 diuretic. 



11. PACHYGONE, Miers. 



Sepals 6 or 9, in 2 or 3 series, the inner ones larger, imbricate. Petals 

 6, shorter than the sepals, embracing the stamens at the base. Male flowers: 

 Stamens 6, free, incurved at the top, anthers small, globose-didymous. Female 

 flowers : Staminodia 6 ; carpels 3, with thick horizontal stigmas. Drupes reni- 

 form, the scar of the style near the base ; putamen slightly excavated, with an 

 internal process. .Seed horseshoe-shaped, without albumen, cotyledons semi- 

 terete, almost horny, the radicle very short. Leaves ovate. Flowers in racemes, 

 the males clustered along the rhachis, the females solitary. 



Leaves broad ovate or ovate-cordate, pilose on under side, 2 to Sin. long, Sin. 



broad 1. P. Bulkii. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, 6 to 9in. long; Sin. broad, rounded and slightly- 

 peltate at the base . . ' . . 2. P. longifolia, 



1. P. Hullsii (after C. Hulls), F. /. M. Fragtn. ix. 81. A tall climber 

 clothed with a yellowish or brownish tomentum. Leaves chartaceous, broadly 

 ovate or ovate -cordate, about 5in. long and 3in. broad, quintuplinerved or here 

 and there triplinerved at the base, the apex acute> sparsely or the under side 

 densely pilose or when old nearly glabrous and shining on both sides, and the 

 reticulation prominent, petioles about l^in. long. Eacemes solitary or in pairs, 

 about 5in. long ; pedicels sparsely tomentose, 1 to 2 lines long, bracts subtending 

 the flowers narrow, silky tomentose. Sepals 6, glabrous. Petals 6, inflexed, 

 stamens 6, free. Anthers cubical-rotund, slightly didymous, bursting longitudi- 

 nally. Stigma somewhat broad. Carpels of female flowers 8, sessile. Stami- 

 nodes 6, slender. 



Hab. : Bockhampton and in the tropical scrubs northward. 



2. P. longifolia (long-leaved). Bail. n. sp. A strong climber, almost or quite 

 glabrous, the branches deeply striate. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, 6 to 9in. long, 

 and about Sin. broad at the rounded slightly peltate base ; thinly coriaceous, the 

 lateral nerves distant, except those near the base, which are somewhat crowded 



