User:Gwillhickers/Passion Flowers

Passion Flowers derive their name from the Passion of Christ. When the first Christian missionaries landed in South America in the sixteenth century, they found a plant which seemed to be a very good omen for the success of their mission. They called it the passion flower because they thought that it symbolised the death of and the passion of Christ. The double row of coloured filaments, known as the corona, signifies to the crown of thorns. The five stamens and the three spreading styles with their flattened heads symbolise the wounds and the nails respectively. The tendrils resemble the whips used to scourge Christ and the lobed leaves look similar to the clutching hands of the soldiers. These photos we taken in Northern California around the San Francisco Bay area (east), inland, about three miles east of Oakland.