NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



wounds. The five sepals and five petals were 

 also taken to have a special significance, rep- 

 resenting the ten apostles, with Peter, who 

 denied his Master, and Judas, who betrayed 

 Him, left out. The flower was given some 

 very curious pictorial interpretations by the 

 botanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. In some parts of the world certain 

 varieties have been grown for their fruits, 

 which are unlike in the different varieties in 

 shape and size, running from the size of a hen's 

 egg to that of a gourd, the latter sometimes 

 weighing from seven to eight pounds. But it 

 has oftener been as a flower, not as a fruit, 

 that the plant has been noted; indeed, it is 

 quite likely its former use has been unknown 

 to many who have long admired it for the 

 peculiar beauty of its flower. Now that 

 through the improved variety a valuable fruit 

 is to come into commercial prominence, the 

 passion-flower takes on a new interest. It has 

 been cultivated for years in many quarters of 

 the globe for its peculiar beauty and for this 

 strange religious association. Ordinarily one 

 sees it rambling over a porch or growing on a 

 trellis or clambering up a huge tree-trunk, its 



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