The Passion Flower Story

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The passion fruit is a vigorous, climbing vine that clings by tendrils to almost any support. It can grow 15 to 20 ft. per year once established.


The Story of the Passion Flower 

    I have this beautiful flower climbing on my arch that I walk under on the way to my office entrance. It is so intricate and beautiful, I thought I'd share a little about it with you all. Although it doesn't bloom until summer - it always reminds me of Easter.

    The Passion Flower (Passiflora) is a symbol of Christ’s Passion and Cross: including his scourging, crowning with thorns, three nails and five wounds.

    In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion.  
    • The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance that confirmed Christ’s death.
    • The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
    • The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (excluding Peter, the denier and Judas scariot, the betrayer).
    • The flower’s radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns with which roman soldiers crowned him as the “King of the Jews”;
    • The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail
    • The 3 stigmata represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (1 in each hand and foot and the last one in his chest caused by the Lance).
    • The colors have also have a meaning. Many species are white and blue colors, representing heaven and purity, and purple, which was the color of the robe that Romans covered Jesus after crowning him.

    The flower has been given names related to this symbolism throughout Europe. In Spain, it is known as “Christ’s thorn”.

    German names include “Christ’s crown”, “Christ’s bouquet”, “crown of thorns”, “Jesus’ passion”, “passion” or “Mother of God’s star”.

    For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
    –Romans 1:20

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