CREEPERS 113 



proportions that it assumes in Ceylon or other 

 tropical countries, where it takes possession of even 

 the tallest forest-trees, and hangs its long trailers 

 from one tree to another, and on and on again, in 

 one dense tangle. The white variety does not seem 

 to have been introduced to Madeira, and its pure 

 white blossoms recall gardens in St. Vincent and 

 other West Indian islands. 



Yet another creeper whose flowering season 

 belongs to the winter months is the scarlet passion- 

 flower, Passiflora coccinea. By the end of January 

 the plant will be covered with a few fully opened 

 flowers, many half-developed flowers and innumer- 

 able buds giving promise of its future splendour. 

 On first acquaintance, one is deceived into thinking 

 that in a few days' time the plant will be a sheet of 

 scarlet blossoms, but such is not the case : each 

 individual flower is short-lived, and by the time 

 the half-developed blossoms have opened, the fully 

 expanded blooms of yesterday have vanished. Thus 

 its flowering season is a prolonged one, but it never 

 attains to any very gaudy splendour. 



By the last days of March the racemes of that 

 most beautiful of all creepers, Wistaria chinensis, or 

 sinensis, will have begun to lengthen, and gradually 

 clothe the whole plant with a pale purple canopy. 



15 



