an unknown plant on Lesvos Island, Greece

Folks -

Here is an inquiry I have received via the Medit-Plants web site.  While 
the description is very curious and rather inexact, the location is very 
specific, so I thought it might occur to someone what this species might be.

    "We have recently returned from a holiday on the Greek island of Lesvos.
While there we saw an unusual plant growing from a rock wall on the road
down to Molyvos harbour.  The plant seemed to be a climber of some sort,
with flowers which had 3 large petals, the centres of which were dominated
by sprays of stamens. The plant was rooted in the wall and hung down, the
only way it attached itself was by means of thorns at the back of each leaf
joint.  We asked someone near where we were staying what it was, but she
only knew the Greek name for it, which sounded something like 'lillium'.  We
have not been able to find it in any of our plant books, and wondered if
anyone could give us a name for it and any other information."

I have read that Greeks casually give the same common name to a wide 
variety of different plants, only bothering to qualify if the species in 
question has some useful purpose, so I don't give a lot of stock to the 
common name reference.  If anyone has ideas about what this might be, 
please let me know.

Thanks,
Sean O.

Sean A. O'Hara                       sean.ohara@groupmail.com
h o r t u l u s   a p t u s          710 Jean Street
'a garden suited to its purpose'     Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
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