438 THE PASSION-FLOWERS. 



The family of Aroidese is there represented by the Pothos, whose 

 fleshy and herbaceous stems are surmounted by leaves sometimes 

 arrow-headed, sometimes digitate or elongated, and always divided by 

 thick cord-like nerves. We know that the Aroidese alone possess, in 

 the vegetable kingdom, the property of disengaging, while flowering, 

 a heat appreciable by the thermometer. To this family belong the 



, vvtfPl 



1. Banana. 2. Carolinea insignis. 3. Clusia rosea. 



Caladiums, a genus closely allied to the Pothos. With these lianas 

 mingle the branching stems of the Passiflorse, or Passion-Flowers, so 

 named because Pierre de Ceza, in his " Histoire du Pe'rou," asserted 

 that he had recognized in the fantastic flowers of this genus of plants 

 all the instruments of our Saviour's Passion an idea which could 

 only have been conceived by an imaginative and credulous Spaniard. 



