Scilla
PASSIFLORA, the Passion Flower, from passio, suffering, and flos, a flower. N.O., Passifloraceoe, or Passionworts. LINNAEAN: 16, Monadelphia; 2, Pentandria.--A noble order of herbaceous or half-shrubby plants, mostly tropical, climbing, with alternate leaves and hermaphrodite flowers of peculiar construction and often distinguished by resplendent colouring. The conspicuous outer portion of the flower of the passiflora, which, at a first glance, may be regarded as the corolla, is really the calyx, but being coloured, it may for a time deceive one. The narrow petals that form a ring of rays constitute the true corolla. In some species, as, for example, Passiflora actinia, the petals are furnished with a series of threads. The stamens and stigmas are conspicuous in the centre and declare themselves as such. The order includes not only the true passion flowers, but the tacsonias and some less distinctive genera. The best known of all these is Tacsonia Van Volxemi, a grand greenhouse climber producing crimson flowers. Amongst the passifloras the best known is P. coerulea, a hardy plant in all the southern parts of this country, and much grown in the suburbs of London. P. quadrangularis, or granadilla, produces a large fruit, full of an agreeable yellowish pulp that is eaten with wine and sugar in Jamaica. P. edulis also produces an edible fruit. The possessor of a spacious stove house may find much to interest him in the cultivation of passifloras, but for general purposes the common blue-flowered hardy species is sufficient.
SILENE, from sialon, saliva, from the gummy exudation by which flies are entrapped, and which explains the familiar name "Catchfly." N.O., Caryophyllaceoe, or Cloveworts. LINNAEAN: 10, Decandria; 3, Trigynia.--The section of cloveworts to which the silenes belong may usefully remind the garden botanist that the pretty chick-weed or the stellaria, the spurrey or spergula, the mouse-ear or cerastium, the soapwort or saponaria, the campion or agrostemma and coronaria, are all of the same family. That the carnations and pinks are of the kindred goes without saying: they are the types of the order and among the most prized of garden flowers. The characters of this order are simple and easily comprehended, so that it affords a good subject for the study of a beginner. The stems usually have swollen joints, and therefore when the florists call the grass of a carnation "grass" they are morphologically right, although technically wrong. The leaves are always simple and opposite; we do not call to mind any variation from this rule. The typical number of parts in the flower is five, but in this feature variations occur: the stamens either agree in number with the petals or differ in a strictly arithmetical manner, but in the cultivated plants the number of stamens and pistils is a kind of lottery whatever the number ought to be. The silene is a catchfly because it is sticky; but why it should delude the poor flies to their ruin, and make (as it appears) no use of them when entrapped, is not yet clear to us. As a matter of practical importance it should be noted here that all the silenes are good plants for the table when rightly cooked. Of course when in flower they are useless, but when the young growth is advancing the tender tops make a good substitute for asparagus, and if blanched they are the more delicate and equally wholesome. The shoots should not be more than two inches long when taken for cooking. The best plant for the purpose is the bladder catchfly (Silene inflata). Probably the tender tops of any catchfly might be used in salads.
TULIP. Cotgrave derives the name from tulipan, the Dalmatian cap, which it resembles, and Skinner, following in a parallel line, derives it from turban, the Turkish cap. N.O., Liliaceoe, or Lilies. LINNAEAN: 6, Hexandria; 1, Monogynia.--The lilies constitute a large and diverse family, comprising such extreme forms as the dog's-tooth violet at one end of the scale and the aspidistra at the other, while between these occur the true lilies and the fritillarias, the phormium, asparagus, agapanthus, tritoma, and yucca. The leaves are always simple and entire, mostly narrow and channelled; the flowers normally consist of six divisions, which are sometimes united in a tube, and the stamens are six or three in number. The fruit is a three-celled capsule opening in three valves, and the seeds are usually membranous or with a crustaceous covering. The lily family range pretty freely over the world; in temperate zones they are herbs often with bulbous roots; in the tropics they attain to gigantic proporations and assume the character of trees. The tulip belongs to the same division of the order as the lily and the crown imperial, and in common with them is of perennial duration, renewing itself at the root annually.