CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
141 
with an almost capillary peduncle, and lax, widely divaricated 
branches, are 1-1^ inch long, spreading to an equal breadth. 
Its dichotomous mode of ramification, twice repeated, with a 
solitary pedicel in the sinus of each division, the ultimate rays 
being so closely divided as to assume a spicated appearance, is a 
form of inflorescence very general in Cissampelos ; and although 
not always so pronounced as in this species, it generally prevails 
under some modification : when it is triehotomously divided, 
as occurs in some species, the panicle assumes another character. 
The sepals are ovate and subacute. The $ raceme is always fur- 
nished with suborbicular leafy bracts with ciliated margins, 
which are very imbricate and conceal the flowers, the bracts 
being generally about | inch in diameter. These $ racemes are 
almost universally simple; but, though rarely, they are some- 
times ramified; and I have now before me a specimen where 
the axillary raceme, only 5 inches long, has its lower axils fur- 
nished with leaf-like petiolated bracts, 7 lines long, 9 lines broad, 
each throwing out a simple branch, 1-2 inches long, w’hich re- 
sembles the terminal moiety of the main raceme, and each is 
provided with imbricated, nearly sessile bracts 2-4 lines broad, 
and corresponding fascicles of short pedicellated flowers. This 
proves what I have before remarked, that the simple $ raceme 
in this genus is in reality a young branch arrested in its growth 
by the early production of flowers in its axils, and where (per- 
haps in consequence) both leaves and flowers are stunted in 
their proportions, 
9. Cissampelos acuta, Tr. & PI. Ann. Sc, Nat, 4 ser, xvii. p. 43; 
— Cissampelos Pareira, Eichl. [non Linn.) 1. c. p, 189 ; — 
folds peltatis, deltoideo-oblongis, paulo cordatis, grada- 
tim acute acuminatis, mucrone longo valido apiculatis, 
7-12-nerviis, supra in junioribus adpresse pilosis, in adultis 
glabris, fusco-viridibus, subtus ferrugineo tomentosis, nervis 
paulo prominulis, marginibus ciliatis; petiolo subtenui, limbo 
paulo breviore, pubescente : paniculis ^ axillaribus, geminis, 
cum altera e ramulo novello florifero folium duplo et ultra 
superante, ebracteata, vel bine inde bractea parva ornata ; 
pcdicellis gracilibus, bracteolis setaceis, floribusque minutis 
griseo pilosulis : racemis $ axillaribus, e ramis novellis enatis, 
imo foliosis, superne bracteatis ; bracteis subcordato-deltoideis, 
aristatis, breviter petiolulatis ; floribus pedicellatis, intra brac- 
teas fasciculatis. — In Ecuador et Peruvia : ^ , Las Pavas, 
Quindiu (Triana) •, v.s. 2 in herb, de Boissier, Peru (Pavon), 
A species recognizable by its deltoid, very acute, cuspidate 
leaves, which in shape approach those of C. sympodialis, and 
difiFer from those of the preceding species in being longer and 
