140 THE CAKNATION FAMILY. 



Flowers simple, regular, pentamerous, usually two or three inches 

 across, star-like, and of a fine crimson, blue, or purple ; the five great 

 stamens, ovary, and three-knobbed stigma elevated upon a pillar called 

 a " thecaphore," almost peculiar to the family, and furnishing a ready 

 means of recognition. Passion-flowers are also known immediately 

 by the curious and beautiful coronet of coloured rays intermediate 

 between the petals and the thecaphore, and which, in combination 

 with the former, gives to these lustrous flowers the look of blended 

 star-fishes and sea-anemones. In the P. aldta, where the rays are 

 purple and barred, we seem to behold a captive Actinia gemmdcea. 

 The length of the thecaphore varies considerably in difierent species. 

 It is longest perhaps in the Passijlora kermesina. (Fig. 108.) 



The pride of South America and the West Indies, festooning every 

 tree, and swaying by their tendrils in long pendants, Passion-flowers 

 are to the forests of those favoured countries what ivy and honey- 

 suckle are to the woods of England. Elsewhere there are but few, 

 and scarcely any beyond the tropics ; and consequently, with the 

 solitary exception of the P. cceriilea, seen iu gardens about Lymm and 

 a few other places, their splendours are exclusively for the hot-house. 

 Several mantle the walls and climb the iron supports in the conserva- 

 tory at the Botanic Gardens. The large yellow egg-like fruit, called 

 the " Granadilla," is the produce of the P. qiiadratiffuldris. The 

 P, coerulea and others produce a similar fruit, but smaller. 



XXIV.— THE CARNATION FAMILY. CaryophyllacecB. 



Neat and often beautiful herbaceous plants, three inches to three 

 feet high, for the most part slender and fragile, and very often 

 glaucous. Stems thin and delicate, readily separable at the joints, 

 and frequently foi-ked. Leaves invariably opposite, simple, and entire; 

 usually more or less oval or lanceolate, and pointed. Infloi'cscence in 

 corymbs ; flowers regular, generally pentamerous and star-like ; petals 

 often deeply cleft ; stamens almost always ten, by deficiency some- 

 times five or four : ovary single, raised on a short stalk, or inserted in 

 a ring, on wliich the petals and stamens are likewise placed ; styles 

 two to five, long, white, and slender, with the stigmas running along 



