1 14 TRE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
most beautiful appearance in its native woods, and it has 
been in a few instances produced in England. It is 
round, about the size of an apple, with a smooth but 
very thick rind, and has a great number of black seeds 
among its yellow pulp. The flowers of this species are 
delightfully fragrant, and of a reddish colour. The 
fruit of this kind, as well as that of four others, is some- 
times called the granadilla, or little pomegranate. Some 
of the other granadilla vines bear large oval fruits, of a 
rich violet colour, much resembling in appearance that 
of a purple egg-plant, and highly aromatic in flavour. 
Another species of passion-flower bears a berry the 
size of an olive, which, as well as the flowers, is much 
used in Jamaica to form a syrup, valued by the West 
Indians. 
The thread-like coloured stamens which surround the 
flower-like rays, and some other portions of this deli- 
cately constructed blossom, attracted the notice of the 
Spaniards in their conquest of America, and induced them 
to give it the name of passion-flower. To their enthu- 
siastic imaginations, the difl^erent parts of the blossoms 
figured the number of the Apostles, the rays of glory, 
the nails, the hammer— those sad signs of the Saviour’s 
passion ! and the sight of this wonderful symbol in the 
far-off wilderness, was to them an assurance of con- 
quests which were to be effected under the name of re- 
ligion. More anxious to promote their own peculiar 
doctrines of faith, and to ensure a temporal dominion, 
than to exemplify the spirit of Him whom they profess 
to follow, the very men who beheld in a flower of the 
forest an emblem of love — an emblem for faith to rest 
upon — carried misery wherever they raised their 
standard. 
It requires some imagination to see, in the passion- 
flower, a symbol of the subject it is thought to repre- 
sent ; but it is still, in some Catholic countries, regarded 
with some veneration and affection, and considered a 
marvellous confirmation of the Scriptural doctrine of the 
Atonement. 
The passion-flower gives its name to the natural order 
Passifloreae, which contains but few other plants, and 
none of them natives of Britain. 
