Beautiful, originally uploaded by martinbruce54.
Amy had a great description of this flower. It is called a Passion Flower.
“Passion” does not refer to love, but to the Christian theological icon of the passion of Christ on the cross. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries discovered this flower and adopted its unique physical structures, particularly the numbers of its various parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus Christ and especially the Crucifixion. For example: the radial filaments which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower were taken to represent the Crown of Thorns. The ten petals and sepals can represent the ten faithful apostles. The top 3 stigmata can represent the 3 nails and the lower 5 anthers the 5 wounds. The flower has been given names related to this symbolism throughout Europe since that time. In Spain, it is known as Espina de Cristo (Christ’s Thorn).
i already answered that question over on your flickr site.
This is what Amy commented on the Flickr site. Interesting!
Passion Flower.
“Passion” does not refer to love, but to the Christian theological icon of the passion of Christ on the cross. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries discovered this flower and adopted its unique physical structures, particularly the numbers of its various parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus Christ and especially the Crucifixion. For example: the radial filaments which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower were taken to represent the Crown of Thorns. The ten petals and sepals can represent the ten faithful apostles. The top 3 stigmata can represent the 3 nails and the lower 5 anthers the 5 wounds. The flower has been given names related to this symbolism throughout Europe since that time. In Spain, it is known as Espina de Cristo (Christ’s Thorn).