PASSION-FLOWER FAMILY. 157 



1. MESEMBRYANTHEMUM, FIG-MARIGOLD. (Name com- 

 posed of Greek words signify ii ig flowering at midday.) Cult, for ornament, 

 chietiv from S. Africa : ft. summer. 



* Annual or biennial, broad-leaved, prostrate, cultivated in open around. 

 M. crystallinum, ICE-PLANT. Plant remarkable for the glittering little 

 excrescences which cover the herbage, like hoar-frost ; leaves soft and tender, 

 large, the lower rounded heart-shaped or ovate, upper spatulate, wavv ; flowers 

 sessile, white or purplish, ' across. 



# * Perennial, somewhat woody-stemmed house-plants, from Cape of Good Hope: 



leaves a/I opposite, scssi/e or connate at base, smooth. 



M. dolabriforme, HATCIIET-LKAVED F. With glaucous and dotted 

 hatchet-shaped leaves, and yellow flowers opening at evening. 



M. acinaciforme, SCYMITAB-LKAVKD F. With pale 3-sided salnv- 

 shaped leaves (3' long, fully ' wide), flattened branches and peduncle, and 

 pink-purple flower 3' -4' across. 



M. speetabile. With glaucous and linear 3-sided pointed leaves, and 

 pink-purple flower 2' across. 



2. TETRAGONI A. (Name Greek forfour-nngled, from shape of the fruit. ) 

 T. expansa, NEW ZEALAND SPINACH. Occasionally cult, as a Spinach : 



leaves pale, triangular or rhombic-ovate, with short margined petioles ; greenish 

 small flower sessilo in the axils ; stamens several, in clusters alternate with the 

 4 lobes of the calyx. (T) 



51. PASSIFLORACE^E, PASSION-FLOWER FAMILY. 



Represented mainly l>y the Pas.-ion -flowers described below. In 

 conservatories may be found one or two species of TACSOXIA, dif- 

 fering from true Passion-flowers in having a long tube to the flower, 

 but they are uncommon, and rarely blossom. 



1. PASSIFLORA, PASSION-FLOWER. (Flower of the Passion ; the 

 early Roman Catholic missionaries in South America finding in them symbols 

 of the crucifixion, the crown of thorns in the fringes of the flower, nails in 

 the styles with their capitate stigmas, hammers to drive them in the stamens, 

 cords in the tendrils.) Herbs or woody plants with alternate leaves and con- 

 spicuous stipules, climbing by simple axillary tendrils ; the flowers also axil- 

 larv, usually with 3 bracts underneath, and a joint in the peduncle. Calyx 

 with a very short tube or cup, and 5 divisions which arc colored inside like the 

 petals, and often with a claw-like tip. Petals 5 on the throat of the calyx, or 

 sometimes none : within them the conspicuous crown of numerous filaments 

 or rays, forming a double or more compound fringe. Stnmens 5, with nar- 

 row-oblong versatile anthers : their filaments united in a tube below sheath- 

 ing and adhering more or less to the long stalk which supports the 1 -celled 

 ovary. Styles 3, mostly club-shaped : stigmas capitate. Fruit berry-like, 

 edible in several species', with many seeds, enveloped in pulp, on 3 parietal 

 placentas. Fl. summer, open for only one day. 



* Wild species of the country, herbaceous, smooth, with 3-lobcd leaves. 

 P. llltea. Low grounds, from S. Penn. to 111. S. : slender, low-climbing, 



with the short and blunt lobes of the leaves entire, and a greenish-yellow flower 



of no beauty, barely 1' wide. 11 



P. incarnata, the fruit, called MAYPOPS in S. States, edible, as large as a 



hen's egg : trailing or low-climbing, with deeply 3-cleft serrate leaves, a pair of 



glands on the petiole and one or more on the small bracts, the purple crown 



of the handsome flower (2' -3' across) rather longer than the pale petals. 



Dry ground, from Virginia and Kentucky S. 11 



* * Cult, from South America. Stems woody, except the first. (These are the 



commoner species : there are a few hybrids and rarer ones.) 



