452 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



24. Passion-flower 



Passifldra liiiea. — Family, Passion-flower. Color, greenish 

 yellow. Leaves, alternate, with 3 obtuse, entire lobes. 



Sepals, 5, united at base, colored, a fringed crown at the 

 throat. Petals, 5, joined to the calyx. Stamens, 5, their 

 filaments united, making a tube below, which surrounds the 

 long stalk of the ovary ; separated above, with large anthers. 

 Fridt, a berr}^, \ inch in diameter. Flowers, i inch across, on 

 jointed peduncles in the leaf-axils. 



Pennsylvania southward. 



25 



P. incarnafa, in dry soil, from Virginia southward, bears 

 large white flowers, with a purple and pink crown. Fruit, 

 called maypop, is an oval, yellowish berry the size of a small 

 apple, edible. 



The passion-flower vine is better known North in cultivation. 

 The flower was named by Roman Catholic missionaries in South 

 America, who fancied they found in it symbols of the passion of 

 our Saviour — "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." 



26. One-seeded Bur-cucumber 



Sfcyos angulatus.— Family, Gourd. Color, white. Leaves, 

 heart-shaped at base, 5-lobed, or 5-angled. Time, July to Sep- 

 tember. 



Flowers, of 2 kinds, pistillate, in roundish, peduncled heads, 

 staminate in corymbs, from the same leaf-axils. Petals, 5, 

 large, united below, with spreading border. Stigmas, 3. Style, 

 I. Fruit, a prickly, bur-like receptacle for a single seed. 



The fruit of the gourd family is called pepo. The melon, 

 squash, cucumber, pumpkin, and gourd are examples. This plant 



