Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

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The Ethnobotany 483
Passiflora suberosa. Drawn by P.N. Honychurch.
the flower, the crown of thorns. The calyx, the glory
or nimbus. The white tint, purity. The blue tint,
HEAVEN’’ (Coffey 1993). What most accounts do
not add is the historical sequence behind that story.
Nicolas Monardes was perhaps the first to use the
Latin term Flos passionis (flower of the crucifixion) in
1582. Since that story and the plant were not part of
John Frampton’s ([1577] 1925) translation, Englishspeaking
people were rarely aware of Monardes’s role.
Supposedly, the same species was brought to Europe
by Jac Boccio in 1610, and that introduction may have
been the source of cultivated plants in England,
Holland, and Sweden (Svanidze et al. 1974).
The same passion-flower, later named P. incarnata,
was mentioned by Strachey ([1612] 1953) on the James
River of Virginia: ‘‘Here is a Fruict by the Naturalls
called a Maracock this groweth generally lowe and
creepeth in a manner amongest the Corne ... yt is of
the bignes of a Queene-apple, and hath many azurine
or blew kernells, like as a Pomegranett, and it
bloometh a most ssweet and delicate flower, and yt is
a good Sommer Cooling fruict, and in every field
where the indigenous people plant their Corne be
Cart-loades of them.’’ His original notes on the
Powhatan used maracah (Harrington 1955). That
same year Capt. John Smith reported that the
indigenous people planted ‘‘Maracocks, a wild fruit
like a lemmon, which also increase in fruit’’ (Coffey
1993). Subsequently, herbalist Gaspar Bauhin recorded
the species in 1623. Parkinson ([1629] 1976)
wrote that the plant ‘‘Maybe called in Latine, Clematis
Virginiana; in English, the Virgin or Virginia Climer;
of the Virginians, Maracoc; of the Spanish in the West
Indies, Granadillo, because the fruit ... is in some
fashion like a small Pomegranate on the outside.’’
However, it was the name Granadilla hispanis, flos
passionis italis (little Spanish pomegranate, Italian
passion flower) published by Francisco Hernández in
his book of 1651 that was the earliest firsthand record
Linnaeus had as the basis for Passiflora in 1753. Not
only did Linnaeus have the description and drawing
from Hernández, but he also knew that the plants had
been cultivated in England from the 1600s. Indeed,
Linnaeus had studied the live plants at the Hortus
Cliffortianus (Holland) and Hortus Uppsaliensis (Sweden).
All these names had been applied to the species
that Linnaeus called P. incarnata (flesh-colored). He
was mistaken about the flower color because they are
blue.
The Latin Flos passionis became flor de la pasión
(Spanish), fleur de la passion (French), flor da paixão
(Portuguese), and passion-flower as generic equivalents
of the genus Passiflora. The apparent lone
exception to these names is in Puerto Rico where the
genus is called parcha (from palcha, Quechua). Today
parcha is mostly associated with the introduced South
American P. edulis. Probably the plant and its name
were introduced at the same time from Peru where
now P. edulis is called maracuya.
The names maricock and maracocks gave rise to
maracoc, maycock, maypop (Alabama, North Carolina),
mayapple (Alabama, North Carolina), Mollypop
(Alabama, North Carolina), pop-apple (North
Carolina), apricot (North Carolina), and apricot-vine
(Texas). All of these names are supposedly derived
from mahcawq [mäkak, mä’kâwk] (Powhatan), akin to
machkak (Menomini), mäkäk (Cree, Ojibwa), and
ma’ka’kwi (Fox). Although similar, there seems to be
no relation to Tupí mboruku’ya or maraú-yá, in
Portuguese maracujá, and maracuya in Spanish,
names for P. edulis (Gerard 1907).
Passiflora incarnata is also known as granadilla
(little pomegranate, Texas, Florida fide Williams
[1837] 1962), Holy-Trinity flower (Texas), pasionaria
(of the crucifixion, Texas), passion-vine (North Carolina),
and purple passionflower (Florida). Opako is
the Alabama name, and it is almost identical to the
Koasati apakó, Muskogee opvkv [opv’kv], and Miccosukee
opakî. Probably belonging here is làanasi (laana,
yellow, osi, suffix meaning extremely, Alabama). The
plant designated by the Alabama name is described as
having a ‘‘small sweet melon, smells like a honeydew,
makes the mouth itchy, size of an orange; a vine with a
fruit similar to passion fruit (if one eats too much of it,
it will blister the tongue and mouth)’’ (Sylestine et al.
1993). The species ranges from Virginia to Missouri,
south to Florida and Texas and Bermuda, and it is
introduced farther north in the United States.
In addition to eating the fresh fruits (uwa’ga), the
Cherokee made a social drink of them, mixing the