Passionflower

Passionflower (Passiflora), a genus of plants almost exclusively natives of the warm parts of America, and belonging to the natural order Passifloraceæ. The flowers are hermaphrodite, with a coloured calyx, generally of five segments; the corolla also of five segments or wanting; always having a more or less conspicuous crown of filaments springing from the throat of the tube formed by the base of the calyx and corolla. The stamens are five, inserted in the tube of the calyx, united in a tube to near the apex, where they divide, and are surmounted by the much-reflexed anthers. The ovary is one-celled, elevated on a stalk, surmounted by three thick styles with thick clove-like stigmas. The fruit is fleshy. This genus has received its name from fanciful persons among the first Spanish settlers in America imagining that they saw in its flowers the emblems of our Lord's passion; the filamentous processes being taken to represent the crown of thorns, the nail-shaped styles the nails of the cross, and the five anthers the marks of the wounds. The species are mostly half-shrubby evergreen or stove climbers, of rapid growth; and most of them have lobed leaves, with from two to seven lobes. The flowers of many are large and beautiful, on which account they are often cultivated in hothouses. Some of the species are also cultivated in tropical countries for their fruit, particularly those of which the fruit is known by the name Granadilla (q.v.). The apple-fruited Granadilla or Sweet Calabash of the West Indies is the fruit of P. maliformis, which is about two inches in diameter, containing within a hard stringy shell an agreeable gelatinous pale yellow pulp. P. quadrangularis is the common Granadilla, a native of Jamaica and South America, but is cultivated in all parts of tropical South America, and occasionally in hot-houses in Britain for the sake of its fruit. The fruit is oblong in shape, often six inches in diameter transversely. The skin when ripe is greenish yellow in colour, thin, but tough and leathery, and contains a very succulent pulp of a purple colour which is sweet and slightly acid. It is generally eaten with wine and sugar. The root of the plant is poisonous, owing to the presence of an active principle called passiflorine, the properties of which are similar to morphine. The laurel-leaved Granadilla is P. laurifolia, the fruit of which is named Water-lemon by the English and Pomme de Liane by the French in the West India Islands. It grows to about the size of a hen's egg, becomes yellow, dotted over with white when ripe, and contains within the tough thin rind a whitish sweet watery pulp, delicately aromatic and slightly acid. It quenches thirst, allays heat, and induces appetite. P. incarnata, a species with herbaceous stems, a native of the warm parts of South America, produces an edible orange-coloured fruit about the size of an ordinary apple. The fruit of P. edulis is about two inches long and slightly less in diameter, assuming a livid purple colour when ripe, and contains an orange-coloured pulp with the flavour of a somewhat acid orange. The fruit of some species of passionflower, however, is not only uneatable, but fetid; and the roots, leaves, and flowers of some have medicinal properties, narcotic, emmenagogue, anthelmintic, febrifugal, &c. The hardest species, the Blue Passionflower (P. cærulea), grows well enough in some parts of France, and even in the south of England.