September 28, 1895. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
65 
curious often possess more attraction than the 
beautiful, a case in point being the above plant, 
which is often referred to in common parlance as 
the Crab’s Claw, Freshwater Soldier, &c. The leaves 
of the plant resemble those of a small Aloe very 
closely, and are produced in thick rosettes, the tips 
just peeping above the surface of the water, the re¬ 
mainder of the plant being entirely submerged. By far 
the most vigorous examples of it that we have yet 
noticed are to be found in the large lake at Alder- 
maston Court, the county residence of C. Keyser, 
Esq. They were first planted a number of years 
ago through the agency of an enthusiast in British 
Botany, who was at that time on a visit to the 
former owner of the estate. The plants have 
rapidly multiplied since then, and are without doubt 
quite at home. The great drawback to the intro¬ 
duction of Stratiotes aloides into ornamental waters 
is that once it recovers itself itself of the check 
resulting from the change of abode its growth 
becomes so rampant as to need curtailment in order 
to prevent it encroaching too much upon other 
plants in its vicinity. 
TEA ROSES. 
This section of the Queen of Flowers has become 
immensely popular of late years, and when we take 
all things into consideration it is not surprising that 
it is so. It is true that the Teas may not possess so 
robust a constitution as the hybrid perpetuals, and 
that a little more care and attention with regard to 
covering them up, especially in the north of England 
and in Scotland, is necessary to enable them to pass 
safely through our winters ; but after all they richly 
repay these attentions. The delicate and beautiful 
shades of colour to be seen in this section are 
observable nowhere else, and for continuity of 
blooming they leave the H. Ps far behind. We 
have some beds filled with different varieties in 
which the plants have been blooming without 
cessation during the whole of the summer, and are 
now at the end of September showing a quantity of 
buds that demonstrate the fact that they intend to 
keep on blooming until frost puts a stop to further 
growth for the season.— P. B. 
LABURNUM F LOWERING IN SEPTEMBER. 
Can any of your readers inform me as to the 
reason of this extraordinary freak of nature ? In 
the grounds of Mrs. Tweedy, Widmore House, 
Bromley, Kent, there is at the present time a small 
tree of Laburnum covered with long beautiful 
racemes of flower ; it was covered in the month of 
May with bloom. I shall be very glad if any readers 
of The Gardening World could give me their 
opinion as to its flowering the second time in the 
same year.— John Ford, Gardener, Netherton, Widmore 
Road, Bromley, Kent. 
IMPATIENS ROYLEI. 
A great favourite in cottage gardens, this handsome 
and easily-contented plant is but comparatively 
rarely seen in the more pretentious gardens of the 
wealthy, despite the fact that there are few plants that 
present a more attractive appearance, and certainly 
none more easy of culture. In fact, once it obtains 
a footing in a position in which it is at all possible to 
exist, it comes up year after year as freely as could 
well be desired. Nowand again one comes across it 
in the most unexpected of places, a fact that really 
causes a good deal of wondering conjecture as to 
how it managed to get there. In height the plant 
varies from 6 ft. to io ft., according to the soil in 
which it is growing, whilst the rose or rosy-pink 
flowers are produced in great abundance. It is thus 
a most suitable subject for the wild garden, as well 
as for the back row in the mixed herbaceous border. 
Although it was originally brought from India it 
may now be seen growing wild in more than one 
neglected corner where the seed has fallen and 
germinated. There can be no doubt but that it is 
the finest of the hardy Impatiens, and as such well 
worthy the attention of those who lay store by hardy 
plants of all kinds. 
A YELLOW VIOLA FROM ELGIN. 
Last week some bunches of a yellow Viola, new to 
us, were sent by Messrs. Morrison and Cunningham, 
nurserymen, Elgin, N. B. The flowers were nearly 
circular and measured 2 in. by 2J in., which is a good 
size for this late period of the year. The lip was 
clear yellow, and the other four petals closely 
veined with a similar hue on a creamy-yellow 
ground. The general effect at a short distance away 
was that the flowers were canary-yellow, with a few 
short, violet rays at the base of the three lower 
petals. For beds or borders the variety would no 
doubt answer admirably, provided the plants are of 
close, branching, and bushy habit. No particulars 
whatever accompanied the specimens, so that we 
cannot vouch for the habit of the plants. 
POTATO COCKERILL'S SEEDLING. 
I should be much obliged if you would allow me 
to correct a little mistake which appearei in The 
Gardening World of the 21st inst., regarding 
Cockerill's Seedling Potato. It was raised by 
myself, Thomas Cockerill, and not Mr. A. Cockerill. 
It is white fleshed, round, of good quality, a very 
heavy cropper, and is a cross between Schoolmaster 
and The Canon (Carter’s). In the garden with me 
it is a very robust grower.— -Thos. Cockerill, Head 
Gardener to Miss E. E. Arkwright, The Gate House, 
Wirksworth, Derbyshire. 
DAHLIA MRS. FRANCIS FELL. 
This Dahlia, which is classed as belonging to the 
Cactus section, received First-class Certificates at 
the Royal Aquarium on September 4th, and at 
the grand show of the National Dahlia Society, held 
at the Crystal Palace on September 7th of last year, 
where it was exhibited by Mr. T. S. Ware, of 
Tottenham. As shown then it was very nearly a 
pure white flower. Grown, however, in the open, 
without any shade at all, it assumes a blush-pink 
tint, which, although pretty enough in itself, is 
rather disappointing(when it takes the place of the 
white flower expected by the cultivator. 
-- 
THE PASSION FLOWER. 
A correspondent asks for some information, 
through the medium of the Manchester City News, 
respecting that beautiful production of Nature, the 
Passion Flower, with explanation of the name ; it 
may be useful, he thinks, not only to himself, but to 
others who are interested in such inquiries. 
Well, in the first place, as to the appellation. 
This does not rest upon the popular and limited 
sense of the word passion, unreasoning and furious 
anger, such as declares and illustrates an unhappy 
temperament, both in men and women, and calls 
only for our pity. “ Passion ” properly denotes any 
very deep-seated emotion, as when we speak of 
passionate love, passionate attachment, passionate 
desire. Hence it passes, in the language of the 
Christian faith, to the profound emotions of 
" Passion week,” or the few days preceding the 
Crucifixion, with the most solemn and far-reaching 
word ever spoken, tetelestai, “ It is finished,” and in 
reference to this it is that the flower has its name, 
originally Flos Passionis Christi, bestowed in the 
time of Columbus. 
Columbus, it will be remembered, had for his best 
friend that purest and wisest of mediaeval queens, 
Isabella of Castille, the admirable woman, always 
full of mercy to the vanquished, by whose command 
surgeons were first provided for the wounded upon 
the battle-field, and whose entire reign was marked 
by piety of word and deed. Isabella it was who first 
appreciated the lofty schemes of Columbus, and, 
when others held aloof, facilitated the enterprises 
which by-and-bye were to double the world. Soon 
as she heard that her new subjects beyond the 
western sea were heathens, she hastened to despatch 
missionaries. As in a hundred other grand schemes 
for the amelioration of the condition of the ignorant 
and the suffering, a woman thus led the way in con¬ 
veyance to them of spiritual truth. These first of 
the Christian missionaries—first, that is, to start 
from Europe—full of the traditions of the mighty 
work accomplished by Helena, Melanie, St. Patrick, 
St. Brighit, Paulinus, Bertha, Emma of Normandy, 
and the rest of the illustrious band who lived and 
died before a.d. 1000— were Jesuit priests. They 
soon descried a wonderful flower, previously quite 
unknown, which seemed to them to present emblems 
of leading facts connected with Passion week, and to 
convey a sort of s) mbolical assurance of the ultimate 
triumph of Christianity, and forthwith bestowed 
upon it the name now before us. The plant was 
soon carried to Spain, thence to Bologna and Rome, 
in due course to Belgium, and eventually to 
England. 
The first mention of it in existing literature seems 
to have been made by Monardes, the celebrated old 
physician of Seville (temp. Queen Elizabeth), whose 
name is preserved in that of a well-known beautiful 
genus of the Labiatae. Monardes never himself 
visited America, but he was supremely industrious 
in collecting information from travellers ; in regard 
to the Passion Flower, he may, perhaps, have been 
further indebted to Oviedo, author of the famous 
“Natural History of the Indies,” 1535. Monardes 
whose book was devoted chiefly to medical botany, 
found a translator of it into English, in one, John 
Frampton, 1577. Frampton’s title, as usual in the 
books of this period, is quaint and lengthy. “ Joyfull 
Newes out of the Newfound World. . . . the 
rare and singular virtues of divers and sundry 
herfces,” and soon. Whatever its deficiencies, the 
book is interesting as the earliest noteworthy account, 
in English, of the vegetable and other products of 
America. Oviedo appears to remain in the original 
Spanish. Drawings of the flower, ludicrously mis¬ 
represented and exaggerated, were published it 
would seem by the Jesuit artists. Such at all events 
is the character of one copied by old Parkinson in 
the “ Paradisus Terrestris,” 1629, p. 394, palpably a 
superstitious make-up. Parkinson gives at the same 
time, upon the opposite page, a fairly correct draw¬ 
ing of the genuine Imago, described by him as “ the 
surpassing delight of all flowers.” Johnson, in his 
appendix to Gerald's "Herbal,” 1633, calls it “ an 
epitome of our Saviour’s passion,” and adds that 
although the plant was rare it grew "in great plenty 
with Mistress Tuggy at Westminster.” The poets, 
of course, were not slow to avail themselves of so 
suggestive a theme, the way led, so far as we know, 
by old Rembertus Rapinus, in his celebrated 
" Hortorum.” The passage, accurately descriptive, 
and opening with, 
Flos alte incisus, crispato margine frondes, 
will be found by the curious in " Liber Primus,” on 
p. 23. (Leyden edit., 1672, Chetham Library). 
Sometimes called the Holy Rood flower, and re¬ 
garded as the ecclesiastical emblem of Holy Cross 
Day, it may be interesting to add that the Passion 
Flower is introduced in the iron work of the beauti¬ 
ful choir screens of two of our cathedrals, Lichfield 
and Hereford. No two, after all, of the old inter¬ 
preters agree as to the representative significance of 
the several parts. The most reasonable idea seems 
to be that the ten " petals,” say rather the ten 
pieces of the perianth, represent the Apostles— 
Judas, who betrayed, and Peter who denied, being 
absent; the three stigmas the tri-personality, and 
the five stamens the five wounds. The thecaphore 
(or gynophore) is the shaft of the Cross; the corona 
is the crown of thorns, though some prefer the 
aureola, halo, or "glory ” placed round the head by 
painters. This last, it hardly needs saying, could 
not possibly have entered into the original concep¬ 
tion. Lastly, there are the tendrils, which stand for 
the cords; and the juice and the pulp of the fruit, 
which, when cut open, is blood-colour. 
All this may be very inviting to lovers of fable 
and the marvellous, but how far away eclipsed by 
the realities which pertain to the flower as an object 
of botanical study ! The structure and the life- 
history of the Passion Flower count with the most 
interesting known to science. These, too, may be 
learned from 120 different species of’Passion Flowers, 
strictly so-called, in addition to which there are 
nearly 100 relatives, the aggregate constituting the 
order Passiflorae. The genuine Passion Flowers are 
natives chiefly of the warmer parts of America, 
where they are the pride of the woods and forests, 
ascending gracefully to the topmost branches of the 
trees. In the Genoese Riviera, Passion Flowers are 
trained so as to mount into aged Olives, there develop¬ 
ing quite a sea of emerald foliage, decked with 
innumerable blossoms. When greenhouses and 
conservatories began, many species were introduced 
and became general favourites, no plant able to climb 
being more decorative. The common blue-flowered, 
the Passiflora caerulea, arrived from South Brazil in 
1625. This one, fortunately, is well suited to the 
English climate. How gloriously it flourishes in the 
western counties, as about Bristol and Bath, covering 
house fronts with its verdant tapestry, in summer 
literally “star spangled ” and in autumn adorned 
with fruit like golden plums ! At Penzance it grows 
within a few feet of the salt water. Sometimes, 
