The first claim to our notice after these belongs to a most wholesome
fruit, which the Spaniards call la granadilla. It grows in great
abundance in the plain, at all seasons of the year, on a shrub which
clings, like ivy, to hedges and bushes. There are many species of it,
differing only in form and colour. They all bear a middle-sized apple,
of a golden colour spotted with red, in taste between sweet and acid,
with an agreeable odour, and full of round, black seeds. Whether eaten
raw, or boiled with sugar, like citrons, and drunk mixed with cold
water, it is extremely salubrious. Its sweet juice conduces much to
strengthen the bowels, and without danger to cool the limbs, after they
have been heated by the sun. If you attentively examine the beautiful
flower of this plant, you will find the scourge, the crown, the nails,
the cross, the pillar, the dice, the gall, and all the other instruments
belonging to the passion of our Lord, plainly figured there.
On this account it universally goes by the name of the passion flower,
and was thought worthy to be brought from America to Rome, in the time
of Paul V.