Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/364

342 P A S P A S period its guns WITC often turned on the town. In 1552 Charles V. and Elector Maurice of Saxony here signed the treaty of Passan, by which the former was constrained to acknowledge the principle of religions toleration. The town was a frequent object of dispute in the war of the Spanish succession, and it was taken by the Austrians in 1806. The bishopric was secularized in 1803, and its territory annexed to Bavaria two years later. The present bishopric was established in 1817. PASSERAT, JEAN- (1534-1602), a poet of merit and a contributor to the Satire Menippec, was born at Paris in 1534. He was well educated, but is said to have played truant from school and to have had some curious adven tures at one time working in a mine. He was, however, a scholar by natural taste, and after a time he returned to his studies. Having finished them he became in his turn a teacher at the College de Plessis, and at the death of Ramus was made professor of Latin in the College de France. This, however, was not till 1572. In the mean while Passerat had studied law, and had composed much agreeable poetry in the Pldiade style, the best pieces being his short ode " On the First of May," and the charming villanelle " J ai perdu ma tourterelle." Like most of the men of letters and learning at the time, Passerat belonged to the politiques or moderate royalist party, and was strongly opposed to the League. His exact share in the Jfenippf e, the great manifesto of the politique party when it had declared itself for Henry of Navarre, is differently stated ; but it is agreed that he wrote most of the verse, and the charming harangue of the guerilla chief Rieux is sometimes attributed to him. Towards the end of his life, after he had re-entered on the duties of his professorship, he became blind. He died at Paris in 1602, and his poems were not published completely till four years later. Passerat united with his learning abundant wit and a faculty of elegant and tender verse, and was altogether a good specimen of the man of letters of the time, free from pedantry while full of scholarship, and combining a healthy interest, in politics and a taste for light literature with serious accomplishments. He had also a considerable reputation as an orator. PASSIONFLOWER (Passiflora) is the typical genus of the order to which it gives its name. The species are mostly natives of western tropical South America; others are found in various tropical and subtropical districts of both hemispheres. The tacsonias, by some considered to form part of this genus, inhabit the Andes at considerable elevations. They are mostly climbing plants (fig. 1) having a woody stock and herbaceous or woody branches, from the sides of which tendrils are produced which enable the branches to support themselves at little expenditure of tissue. Some few form trees of considerable stature desti tute of tendrils, and with broad magnolia-like leaves in place of the more or less palmately-lobed leaves which are most generally met with in the order. Whatever be the form of leaf, it is usually provided at the base of the leaf stalk with stipules, which are inconspicuous, or large and leafy; and the stalk is also furnished with one or more glandular excrescences, as in some cases are the leaf itself and the bracts. The inflorescence is of a cymose character, the terminal branch being represented by the tendril, the side-branches by flower-stalks, or the inflorescence may be reduced to a single stalk. The bracts on the flower-stalk are either small and scattered or large and leafy, and then placed near the flower forming a sort of outer calyx or epicalyx. The flower itself (seen in section in fig. 2) consists of a calyx varying in form from that of a shallow saucer to that of a long cylindrical or trumpet-shaped tube, thin or fleshy in consistence, and giving off from its upper border the five sepals, the five petals (rarely these latter are absent), and the threads or membranous processes constituting the "corona." This coronet forms the most conspicuous and beautiful part of the flower of many species, and consists of outgrowths from the tube formed subsequently to the other parts, and having little morphological significance, but being physiologically useful in favouring the cross-fertilization of the flower by means of insects. Other outgrowths of similar character, but less conspicuous, occur lower down the tube, and FIG. 1. Passiflora carwfefl^var., showing leaf, stipule, tendril, and detached flower. their variations afford useful means of discriminating between the species. From the base of the inner part of the tube of the flower, but quite free from it, uprises a cylindrical stalk surrounded below by a small cup-like out- FIG. 2. Flower of Passionflow r cut through tlio centre to show the arrangement of its constituent parts. growth, and bearing above the middle a ring of five flat filaments each attached by a thread-like point to an anther. Above the ring of stamens is the ovary itself, upraised on a prolongation of the same stalk which bears the filaments, or sessile. The stalk supporting the stamens and ovary is called the "gynophore" or the " gynandro- phore," and is a special characteristic of the order, shared