POPULAR FLORA, 
119 
4. MOONSEEB FAMILY, Order MENISPERMACEJE. 
Woody climbers, with alternate leaves and small dioecious flowers (as shown in Fig. 167, 
168) ; the sepals and petals each 4 or 6 and both of the same color, and a few one-seeded 
pistils, becoming small drupes in fruit, with a moon-shaped or kidney-shaped stone. We 
have two genera of one soecies each, the first common at the North, the second at the 
South. 
1. Stamens 12 to 20 : pistils 2 to 4. Flowers white : leaves rounded and angled shield-shaped. Fruit 
blue-black, ( Menispermum ) Moonseed, 
2. Stamens 6, one before each petal. Flowers greenish : leaves heart-shaped, ( Cocculus ) Cocculus, 
5. BARBERRY FAMILY. Order BERBERIDACE^E. 
Readily distinguished (with a single exception) by having the sepals and petals in fours, 
sixes, or eights (not in fives), 
and with just the same number 
of stamens as petals, one before 
each petal (on the receptacle), 
the anthers opening by an 
uplifted valve or door on each 
side. Pistil only one. Harm- 
less, except the May-Apple (also 
called Mandrake) , which has 
rather poisonous roots, although 
the fruit is innocent and eata- 
ble. Having only one species 
of each genus, we may ascertain 
them by the following key : — 
265. Shoot ; 266. cluster of leaves and raceme ; 267. enlarged flower 
spread open ; 268. a petal more magnified ; and, 269. a stamen, 
with the anther opening, of the common Barberry. 
Shrubs with yellow bark and wood, and yellow flowers. Stamens and petals 6, 
Leaves appearing simple, in a cluster above a branching thorn, which is 265 
an altered leaf of the year before. Berries red, ( Berberis ) Barberry 
Leaves scattered, pinnate, evergreen : no thorns. Berries blue, ( Mahonia ) ^Mahonia. 
Herbs, with perennial roots, all with compound or deeply lobed leaves. 
Flowers yellowish-green, small. Stamens and petals 6. Leaves decompound, from 
the root and also at the top of the stem, ( Gaulophylhmi ) Cohosh, 
