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Menispermum

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Menispermum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/menispermum/). Accessed 2025-04-26.

Family

  • Menispermaceae

Common Names

  • Moonseed

Glossary

alternate
Attached singly along the axis not in pairs or whorls.
peltate
Disc-shaped and attached at centre of lower surface to a stalk (e.g. leaf of Nasturtium Tropaeolum majus).

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Menispermum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/menispermum/). Accessed 2025-04-26.

Menispermum

Leaves of Menispermum canadense are ovate to heart-shaped, roundish, with usually three, five, or seven angular lobes. Meise Botanic Garden (19981146–19 from Ontario), Belgium. 27 May 2011. Image Guillaume Mamdy.

Climbing, woody or semi-woody plants, with alternate, long-stalked, peltate leaves, and separate male and female flowers. Sepals six; petals six or nine; stamens nine to twenty-four. The black or purple-black fruit encloses one half-moon or crescent-shaped seed – giving the popular name. The plants spread rapidly by means of underground stems, and are easily increased by division. Cocculus is nearly allied, but has the leaf­stalk attached at the margin of the leaf, and only six stamens.

Menispermum

Menispermum dauricum can be recognised in bloom by the flowers being more closely packed together in a shorter raceme than in the American species. Meise Botanic Garden (20001590–93), Belgium. 21 June 2013. Image Guillaume Mamdy.

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