LOASA FAMILY 149 



The imagination of Americans does not seem to work 

 along early Spanish lines, for the beautiful passion-flower 

 of our southern states is known by the homely name of 

 maypop. After a warm winter this species, P. incarnata, 

 begins to bloom in April. It is locally abundant in dry 

 soil, where it climbs on shrubs and trees, or lies on the 

 ground, and sometimes becomes a weed in cleared land. 

 A crown of many lavender filaments, banded with purple 

 and white, is spread over the petals. Glands on the leaf- 

 stalk, and below the calyx, exude a nectar when the plant 

 is in bloom. The edible fruit contains many seeds em- 

 bedded in pulp which lacks the aromatic flavor of the 

 cultivated passion-fruits. 



P. suberosa, whose small flowers lack petals, and whose 

 fruit is no larger than a big huckleberry, is a common 

 vine in thickets in the southern part of the peninsula. 



Passiflora incamata. Flowers lavender, 2 in. across, with 

 a showy inner fringe (corona), solitary from leaf -axils. 

 Sepals 5, petals 5, stamens 6. Fruit yellowish, oval or oblong, 

 smooth, 2-3 in. long. Vine. Leaves 3-lobed, 3-5 in. long. 

 Dry soil. Blooming in spring and summer. Fla. to Va. 

 and Mo. 



Passiflora suberosa. Flowers greenish, small. Petals none. 

 Leaves entire or 3-lobed, 1-4 in. long. Fruit blackish purple, 

 small. Thickets. Blooming all the year. Southern penin- 

 sula Fla. 



LOASA FAMILY {Loasaceae) 



Flowers yellow. Leaves and capsules cling tenaciously to 

 whatever touches them. 



Poor-Man's Patches. Stick-Leaf (Genus Mentzelia) 



By the road through the hammock at Palm Beach one 

 of the common plants in the thicket between road and 

 forest bears bright yellow flowers about as large as a 



