The Passion Flower. 19 



The Passion Flower, 



This flower is peculiar to America, but more particularly to the 

 forests of the southern continent; where Nuttall says of this genus 

 of scandent or climbing plants that — their immensely long and 

 often woody branches attain the summits of the loftiest trees, or 

 trail upon the ground, adorned with perennially green or falling 

 leaves, sometimes palmate, or lobed like fingers ; in others, entire, 

 and like those of Laurel. They sustain themselves by means of 

 undivided tendrils ; and send out a long succession of the most 

 curious and splendid flowers, of which no other part of the world 

 offers any counterpart. Some of the flowers are exceedingly 

 fragrant, and succeeded by pleasant tasted acidulous fruits, re- 

 sembling berries or small cucumbers. Three species are indi- 

 genous in the United States, usually growing in light and dry 

 soils, from the lower part of the States of Delaware and Mary- 

 land, to the south and west indefinitely. The arrangement of 

 the stamens in the form of a cross, and the triple crown, occa- 

 sioned the name given it by the Catholics, who first discovered 

 it, as they at once considered it emblematic of the passion or suf- 

 fering of the Saviour. It belongs to the class Gynandria (union 

 of husband and wife), and order Pentandria (five husbands). 

 The generic character is — a five-parted colored calyx ; five petals 

 inserted upon the calyx ; the nectary or lepantheum (petal-like), 

 a triple crown of filaments ; the fruit a pedicellated pepo, or berry. 

 The useful species are, 1st, the P. Laurifolia. The bay-leaved 

 Passion Flower, a native of Surinam. The fruit grows to the 

 size of a small lemon. It has a delicious smell and flavor, and is 

 excellent for quenching thirst, abating heal of the stomach, in- 

 creasing the appetite, recruiting the spirits, and allaying the heat 

 in fevers. 



2d. The P. Maliformis. The apple-shaped Granadilla. It is 

 the Sweet Calabash of the West Indies. The flowers are large, 

 and the colors red, white and blue, in rings, as is usual in this 

 genus. The fruit is of the size of a large apple, yellow when 

 ripe, with a rind enclosing a sweet pulp, with many seeds of a 

 brownish color. It is served up at the table in desserts, where it 

 is considered a great delicacy. The high character, however, 

 borne by this fruit at the South, should not be considered as a 



