I. The Sacred “She heard no sound before her gate, Though very quiet was her bower. All was as her hand had left it late: The needle slept on the broidered vine, Where the hammer & spikes of the passion-flower Her fashioning did wait.”

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II. And The Profane “Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon, Or gather me a star, But leave the sultry passion-flowers Growing where they are. I fear their sombre yellow deeps, Their whirling fringe of black, And he who gives a passion-flower Always asks it back.”
******* Helen Gray Cone

I planted the Passiflora above this summer on a trellis covering one side of a large shed. I wasn’t sure whether it would like its position or whether it would flower. My patience was rewarded and the past 10 days it has been sprouting beautiful purple flowers that look like they have come from another world.

There is a huge amount of mythology and legend attached to this plant, and is at the root of the name we know it by today. Its South American origins made it symbolically important to Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. The invading Spanish soon had its included in Christian philosophy too after drawings by Jacomo Bosio c.1606, a monastic scholar compiling his extensive treatise on the Cross of Calvary, illustrations of the flowers made their way to Rome. The rest is history.