198 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY, 
26. Antizoma. 
Under this name I separated from Cissampelos, in 1851 (Ann. 
Nat. Hist. 2 ser. vii. 41), a small group of South-African plants 
possessing a very peculiar habit : two of them had been described 
by De Candolle, — one as Cissampelos calcarifera of Burchell, of 
which the male flower only was known ; the other being the Cis- 
sampelos angustifolia of the same botanist, from a specimen of 
which 1 derived a knowledge of the female flower : to these, three 
other new species were then added. They are all small, erect 
shrubs, with somewhat the habit of Lycium, having almost simple 
stems or subscandent branches. The leaves, unlike those of other 
Menispermacea, are linear, with extremely abbreviated petioles ; 
they are opake, thick, revolute on their margins, both surfaces 
being shagreened with extremely minute and crowded granula- 
tions. At each node, below the point of insertion of the petiole, 
there is a short, rigid and somewhat reflected spine — a feature 
peculiar to this genus, and quite singular in this family. The 
male inflorescence consists of one or two very short peduncles 
springing out of each axil, which bear on their summit from three 
to six minute flowers on short closely approximated pedicels ; 
these male flowers dififer in no respect from those of Cissampelos. 
The inflorescence and the structure of the female flower are, 
however, very difi’erent : this I found in a unique specimen in 
Dr. Burchell’s herbarium, where on each axil one or two very 
short pedicels bear separately a single minute flower, with two 
oval concave sepals, placed oppositely, with their margins some- 
what imbricated in aestivation ; at the base within, and opposite 
to each sepal, is a very minute scale-like fleshy petal, placed at 
the base of a central ovary, which is nearly the length of the sepals, 
without any style, and with an obsolete stigma. This structure 
will be seen to offer much analogy to that of the genus Peraphora, 
and places them in a position intermediate between Cissampelos 
and Homocnemia, differing from the former in having double the 
number of floral parts, and from the latter in having half as many. 
Messrs. Bentham and Hooker were evidently unacquainted with 
the facts here shown when, in their ‘ Genera Plantar um ’ (p. 38), 
they amalgamated this genus with Cissampelos. The structure 
of the female flower, with a different kind of inflorescence, and 
the peculiar habit of all its species, certainly claim for Antizoma 
the rank of a distinct genus. 
Antizoma, nob. — Flores dioici. Masc. Sepala 4, cuneato- 
obovata, petalo 3-plo longioi’a. Petalum unicum, cyathiforme, 
depressum, margine crenulatum, carnosulum. Stamen uni- 
cum; filamentum cenivdXt., breve; peltata, horizontalis 
