Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 329 



seem by the result to have some conscious power of 

 selecting and travelling straight to a suitable support. 

 It is, naturally, mostly plants with slight, tough stems, 

 that climb in this rather crude fashion, by twining their 

 whole body, so to speak, round the chosen prop. Many 

 others economise their forces and materials by throwing 

 out slender tendrils of various forms, often so sensitive 

 as to defleel: at the slightest touch, to support the main 

 stem as it climbs. Such are the passion-flowers, found 

 here in most parts, _ but nowhere very abundantly. 

 The general character of the flowers is too well known 

 to need description. The largest kind is the simaton, 

 bell-apple, or water-lemon, Passiflora, laurifolia, with 

 oval, entire leaves, and large flowers in which purple and 

 white are the predominant colours. Its yellow fruits 

 are familiar to all. The wild simaton (P. jestida) 

 has hairy leaves and stems, white flowers tinged 

 with pink, and a curious mossy net-work round 

 the fruit, which has gained the plant the poetic, il 

 name of love-in-a-mist. P. biflora has abruptly halt- 

 round leaves that look as though they had been artificially 

 cut to a half-circle, and whitish Mowers. Two or three- 

 other kinds may be met with, but are too sparse to need 

 description here. We may also mention a common wild 

 cucumber (Cephalandra indicaj, with a live-lobed white, 

 rather downy corolla, that at first sight might be 

 taken for a bind- weed or convolvulus but for its spiral ten- 

 drils and pendent melon-like fruit. This is condemned in 

 the Gardens as a troublesome weed, but might plead 

 that it is quite as pretty as many cultivated (lowers. 

 Climbing among grass or low bushes may be found a deli- 

 cate little plant of the same order, that will be recognised 



IT 



