Passifloras/passionflowers

I love passionflowers, they are so beautiful and in September 2022 I found one in the area of Spring in St Vincent thats appears to be the same species of Passiflora that appears to be drawn on a manuscript underneath some of Anderson's writing; I wrote about this here, and this piece of manuscript became the sort of logo for this project.

Anderson must have loved passionflowers too as in the largest plant catalogue that details species growing in the St Vincent Botanical Garden, there are 7 types of Passiflora. This is what he says about them:-

Passiflora multiflora Anderson stated he ‘found this plant on an old Tree on the River Demerary from whence I brought its seeds to the Garden’. Passiflora vespertilis, he brought from Trinidad, and stated that he ‘never found it in these Islands’, meaning St Vincent and I assume the Grenadines and St Lucia.

Passiflora capsularis Anderson stated was a native plant of St. Vincent, along with Passiflora punctata which he wrote was ‘common in the woods of Saint Vincent’.

Anderson believed that Passiflora glauca was ‘one of the most beautifull of the Tribe’ He brought ‘this Plant from the woods of Trinidad to the Garden’. Today, there are two species that has this name as a synonym; Passiflora stipulata and Passiflora magnoliifolia. It's not possible from his description fo me to identify which of these species he had, but I'm not a botanist.

Passiflora palmata he said was ‘an elegant ornamental plant, the most luxuriant of the species’. He wrote that ‘this plant is common in the woods of Saint Vincent & St. Lucia. It makes beautifull arbours’. But it was Passiflora biflora that he described as ‘the most beautifull of the Passion flowers’. He found the plant ‘in its native soil, on the sand hills, [at the] head of Camoony Creek River, Demerary’.

There are photographs of two of these species below.

Passiflora biflora

Passiflora capsularis

And this is the passionflower I found in Spring in St Vincent (c) Welch 2022