Flower ResourcesDiscover the right flowers for your garden.
Summer is a clock time for lemonade , lachrymation cans , and marvel at a beautiful curiosity that creeps up our gates and fencing — the rage bloom . A genus of about 500 species of vine ( and the occasional shrub),Passifloraflowers are distinguished by a characteristic design of radiate filaments and multi - leveled structures . While pollinator ( thankfully ) understand the beguiling flush , they often seem other - worldly to the residual of us . Passiflorahave farseeing spell-bound botanists , nurseryman , and even theologians . Recently , I ’ve receive passionateness heyday exposure from a match champion who go for to do it what ’s going on with the strange flower . In example they ’re not the only ones , we ’ve designed a brief fuse on the passion heyday — the flower ’s geomorphology and common features , and how those structures came to signify something other than " pollinate " and " yield , " thereby giving the plant its name .
Passiflora caerulea . picture by : frted / Flickr .
Morphology : A Beguiling complex body part
The distinctive passion flower has fivepetalsand five alternatingsepals . While both are similar in size and color , the sepals are signalize by a fleeceable hook , orawn , at the confidential information .
Thecoronais composed of slight , coloredfilamentsthat diversify around the central straw . There are two level , call the radii and the pali . The corona discharge ’s homocentric rings of varying hues are thought to guide pollinators ( insects and hummingbird ) to the nectaries at the nerve centre of the flower .
Blue Passion Flower ( Passiflora caerulea ) , one of the most vulgar coinage . Photo by : Ian Foss / Flickr .
Threestigmas(female organs that receive pollen and direct it towards the ovary ) extend above theovary , where the fruit will be produced . Beneath the stigmas are fiveanthers(male organs that produce pollen ) . This arranging , in which the stigmas are above the anthers , is a chemical mechanism to avoid ego - fertilization — there is less chance that the pollen will jaunt upwardly to the brand , than that it would float down and thus ego - pollinate ( most Passiflora cross - pollinate , though some ego - pollinate ) . When the flower first opens , all anthers are ab initio facing up . Within an hour , the five anther rotate downwards to face the flower ’s operculum and corona — and thus the pollinator , who will be below , mining the ambrosia .
For bees to accomplish the nectar , they have to get through theoperculum , a ring of dark-skinned fibers at the base of the central pillar . arrange forthwith over thenectaries , the operculum filaments are a mechanism to discourage ambrosia robber . The pollinator must dawn the operculum barrier to get to the nectar , and thus brush against the pollen - laden anther . In the bee - pollinatedP. caerulea , the operculum may help to diffuse a scent emit by the corona .
yield develop in theovary . Most species grow elongate pods that are two to eight inches in lenght , and an column inch or two in diameters . Not all are comestible , and some are more democratic than others . P. edulis(Purple Passion Flower ) is arguably the most noted species . It produces the violet — or yellowish — fruits that we commonly call " passionfruit . " It is cultivated in warm , frost - free climates throughout the humans .
Etymology : From Whence the rage
I always attributedPassiflora’sname to its oftentimes - enchanting odour and mesmerizing sound structure , evoking the passion of an unbridled summer dalliance . Not to dissuade those with similarly amatory associations , the truth is that the bloom was key out for something with a bit more lordliness — the Passion of Christ . In the other 1600s , Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the plant as a teaching dick , interpret aPassifloraflower as a metaphor for Christ ’s destruction . In this adapt theological manakin , the various flower parts each correspond with a symbol of the crucifixion .
Madonna & Child by Joos van Cleve , c. 1530 - 1535 . A passion flower with a crest of prickle blooms from a gillyflower ( item ) . graphics historian trust the love flush was added days subsequently , as the flora was not preface to Europe until after the artist ’s last . Why , and by whom , remain a mystery . Photo by : Cincinnati Art Museum .
The palmate leaves symbolized the hand of Christ ’s persecutor ; the tendril were the whip used in the flagellation ; the five sepals and five petals represent the ten close apostles ( eject St. Peter the denier , and Judas the betrayer ) ; the five anther signified the five wounds ; three stigma were the nails used to seize Christ to the crown of thorns ; the layered radiate filum of the corona symbolized a crownwork of spine . Linneaus would by and by name the flower for its theological translation .
An illustration of " Fleur de la Passion " includes a poll of thorns around the stain . From Jardin d’hiver ou Cabinet dea fleurs , by Jean Franeau , 1616 .
The Many people of colour of Passiflora : Passifloracultivars & species ( clockwise from top left):P. alata , Photo by : Beatrice Murch Flaigg;P. incarnata , Photo by : Norman G ( via passionflow.co.uk);P.xdecaisneana , Photo by : R.H.S. Wisley;P.‘Constance Eliott ' , Photo by : Les King .
