Passionflower

A modern photograph shows the intricate flower of the invasive vine known as passionflower (Passiflora incaranata). Seventeenth-century naturalist John Banister included the native passionflower on the list of plants he drew up while studying flora and fauna in the New World. The passionflower vine was a common sight in the fields and thickets of Virginia, and the fruit it produced was described by William Strachey, secretary of the colony from 1610 to 1611, as having "the bigness of a queen-apple, and … many azurine, or blue, kernels, like as a pomegranate … a good summer cooling fruit."