Last weekend we stopped at the local flea market and visited the 'plant guy'. Standing there in a pot was a very tall Passion Flower vine with lots of buds. I knew I had to have it. I remember as a child that my mother always had one in the east dining room window. It was so beautiful and she had it trained to vine around the large double window with large sill. We had a trellis at home ready for it, so this beautiful plant went home.
If you are not familiar with the story behind the Passion Flower, I searched the information so that I would not tell it wrong.
"Early explorers and missionaries to this hemisphere, specifically to South America, named these dramatic vines Passiflora or passion flower to help in their conversion of the native Americans to Christianity. They saw and used the beautiful intricate flower parts to tell the story of the death of Jesus, making the story more memorable to listeners. The legend they told is that the passion flower's ten petals and sepals represent the ten apostles present at the crucifixion. The filaments portrayed the crown of thorns, or the halo about Jesus' head.
The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance. The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ. The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or Holy Grail. The stigmata represents 3 nails and 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (4 by nails, 1 by lance). The blue and white colors of many species' flowers represent heaven and purity. The hybrid plants no longer produce the passion fruit, which is edible."
It is such a thrill for me to have my new Passion Flower bloom during Easter Week.
I didn't know this. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI had 2 vines covering the pantry windows in the Vendee, They were old, gorgeous and covered with flowers in the summer. Then they both died. I'm clueless!
ReplyDeleteSo very pretty and the story is right for Easter, thanks for sharing Susan.
ReplyDeleteHow pretty.
ReplyDeleteI use to pick them as wild flowers along a dirt road close to my house when i was a kid . My daughter found some growing wild today when we were putting some stuff in storage and i told her there was a story about jesus in the diffrent parts of the flower . When we got back home i looked it up and shared the story with her just like my mother did when i was young .
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