108 Account of the Purple-fruited Passion Flower. 



North America, growing on the banks of rivers, in Virginia 

 and Carolina ; it has a perennial root, which throws up, an- 

 nually, a number of herbaceous shoots, extending, in a stove, 

 to a considerable distance ; it belongs to that division of the 

 genus, which has three-lobed leaves; the flower is sweet- 

 scented, and rather more showy than that of the other plant, 

 the fringe being more tinged, and variegated, with purple. 

 The fruit, when ripe, is pale orange-coloured, of the size of 

 a middling apple, containing, like the other, many seeds, 

 which are enclosed in a sweetish, pale yellow pulp ; but 

 this, though it is sometimes eaten, is not particularly pa- 

 latable. The plant in America is called the Maij Apple : 

 it is also denominated the Maracoc or Mat/cock, by some 

 authors ; but these are evidently corruptions of Maracot, the 

 Peruvian name of the Passion Flower. Miller made it 

 bear fruit, by keeping it in a stove ; but it has been usually 

 treated as an out-door plant, and not being sufficiently 

 hardy to bear the climate of England, has been lost in 

 most of our gardens, and is now very scarce. It has 

 been figured by Sir James Edward Smith, in the first 

 volume of Abbot's Insects of Georgia, plate 12, and by 

 Dr. Barton of Pennsylvania, in his Elements of Botany, 

 plate 25. 



If we might rely on the authority of our old authors, this 

 particular plant has long been known in the English gardens. 

 Parkinson, whose Paradisus was first published in 1629, 

 describes it as cultivated at that time, growing about a yard 

 and an half high, and bearing flowers (but not fruit), in July 

 and August; he calls it the Maracot she Clematis Virgini- 

 ana, and mentions, that the roots came from Virginia. John- 

 son, in the Appendix to his edition of Gerarde's Herbal, 



