Menispermacece.] " floka indica. 171 



between Menispermacea and the Orders just mentioned, it cannot be denied that the 

 large size of the embryo, and the small quantity of albumen, are very abnormal in 

 the elass to which they belong, and indicate that their true position is at one extre- 

 mity of this class, and that, as in the case of Billeniacea, they form a passage from 

 it to another part of the vegetable Mngdom. In fact, we think that the relationship 

 oi Menispermacea to the Malval aUiauce, in which we include Buphorbiacea, is un- 

 mistakable. A. St. Hilaire has already indicated the resemblance in the androccium 

 to Phyllanthm, and indicated the connection which is established between Meni- 

 spermacea and Malvacece by means of EuphorUacem ; and De CandoUe has noticed 

 an approach in the same parts to StercuUacecs. 



The relationship which exists between Menispermacece and Euphorhiacea appears 

 to us to be too close to be merely regarded as one of analogy. We do not attach 

 much weight to the uniaexuality of both Orders, nor can we adduce the scandent 

 habit of Plukenetia, Balechampia, Pterococcus, Tragia, and other Euphorhiacea, as 

 a very important resemblance. The peltate leaves of species of Mappa, Jatropha, 

 and many other Bufhorhiaceee, and the pseudo-articulation of the leaves of Oicca, 

 Conceveibtt, Cleidion, and others, may also be regarded as distant resemblances. It 

 is the close agreement in structure both of the male and female flowers of many of the 

 trimerous genera of Ewphorbiacea to those of Menispermacece which we are disposed 

 to regard as important. The stamens of Bvphorhiacea are so often identical with those 

 of Menispermacece, that it is needless to enumerate instances, which occur as well 

 among the genera with free stamens as among those in which the stamina are united 

 into a central column. The ovaries of the two Orders, again, are in many instances 

 undistinguishable, except by their being united in the one and free in the other ; and 

 the mode of division of the styles of Euphorhiacea is repeated in some genera of 

 Menispermacece. If to this we add the Euphorbiaceous male flower of Mr. Miers' 

 genus Odoniocarya, the peltate ovules of Glochidion and allied genera, the loculi- 

 cidal dehiscence of the putamen, which is always more or less evidently present in 

 Menispermacece, the frequently curved embryo of Euphoroiaeece, and the peculiar 

 structure of the cocci of Phyllanthus, as figured by Jussieu, with cavities like those 

 so characteristic of Meuispermcccecs, we have a series of resemblances which cannot 

 be neglected. 



In the structure of their stems Menispermacece almost invariably depart from the 

 ordinary type of exogenous vegetation, and there are few or no natural orders of 

 Dicotyledonous plants of equal number of species in which this departure is so great 

 and so uniform. • 



The greatest differences of opinion have existed amongst botanists as to the value 

 of the characters derived from a study of the vegetative organs, and especially the 

 axis of Exogens, in a systematic and physiological point of view ; the more theoretical 

 observers have predicted far too much from the inquiry, the purely systematical have 

 too often neglected it. Those who have combined a sufficiently extensive knowledge 

 of systematic and physiological botany have for the most part considered the struc- 

 ture of the wood to be of very subordinate value : we ourselves adopt this view, 

 from the writings of Brown, Adrien de Jussieu, and Decaisne, with whose observa- 

 tions our experience entirely coincides ; and we would (with Decaisne) recommend a 

 careful study of Menispermacece, and a comparison of the woods of the dilferent genera 

 one with another, and with other plants, as strongly corroborative of this opinion. 

 In a systematic point of view, however, the wood often becomes a safe guide to the 

 affinities of a plant when the organs of vegetation and reproduction are arrested in 

 development, or defeat our attempts at analysis ; on the other hand, in a physiological 

 point of view, the structure of the common axis rather tends to confound our pre- 

 conceived ideas of the necessary adaptation of structures to particular functions, and 

 of these functions being indicated by structure. Without presuming to say that 

 no relation exists between the habit of plants and their wood, or their wood and 

 floral organs, we may affinn that we have never been able to detect any, though we 

 have studied the subject iu the forests of the most favourable localities. One broad 

 fact has indeed been generally recognized, that most climbing plants have abnormal 



