B R Y O N I A s diolca«
Red-berried Bryony.
M O N (E C IA Syngenejia.
Gen. Char. Male, Cal. 5-toothed. Cor. 5-cleft. F i l a ments
3. Anther<e 5.
Female, Cal. 5-toothed. Cor. 5-cleft. Style 3-cleft.
Berry inferior, roundifh, with many feeds.
Spec. Char. Leaves palmate; rough on both tides
‘ with callous points. Male and female flowers on
feparate plants.
Syn. Bryonia dioica. With. 67. Sthth. &E. Jacq.
Aujlr. v. 2. t. 199.
B. alba. Hudf. 437. Relh. 375. Rati Syn. 261.
B. ruderalis. Salijb. Prodr. 158.
C o m m o n every where in hedges and thickets, flowering
from May to September.
Root perennial, growing to a very large fize, white, acrid,
and purgative (fee Withering). Stems annual, climbing by
means of Ample tendrils, angular, rough, not much branched,
very long. Leaves alternate, on rough foot-ftalks, palmate,
with five angular lobe's, veiny, rough on both fides with fmall
callous points. StipulsC none. Flowers in axillary bunches,
the males larger, on longer ftalks, and on a feparate root from
the female, contrary to the other fpecies of this genus, which
therefore Hands in the clafs Moncecia of the Linnsean fyftem.
Calyx bell-lhaped, with five {harp teeth. Corolla longer, in
live elliptical obtufe fegments, whitifh, veined with green.
Stamina confiding of three fhort filaments hairy in their lower
part, two of which bear each of them two antherse, and the third
a folitary one, though Mr. Sowerby has obferved all of them
to bear double antherre occafionally. The antherse are all more
or lefs firmly connected at their bafe, and bear the pollen on their
outer edge. The female flowers are a little elevated on a
Ihort ftalk above the fmooth globular germen, and have no
rudiments of ftamina. The ftyle is divided into three branches,
with cloven downy ftigmas. Berry red, of one cell, full of
fcetid juice, enveloping fix elliptical fpotted feeds.
Molt writers have confounded this with the Bryonia alba of
Linriseus, called alba from the white root, though the berries
of that are black- Dillenius, on the authority of Plukenet,
mentions it as not rare about Cambridge; but Profeflor Martyn
allures us no one elfe has found it. The alba is the Swedilh
plant, fee Flora Suecica.