Passiflora*

There are a lot of passionflower photos about right now, most likely because this is when they bloom. I have blipped them before in all their fascinating forms, but how could one resist photographing these amazing looking flowers for Flower Friday? 

When we moved here almost four years ago there was a small vine planted  outside our bedroom door. When it bloomed I was amazed by the flowers…exotic and intricate, but also vaguely creepy. I had never seen one before, or at least we certainly didn't have one in Berkeley and I had yet to develop my Blipfoto eye beyond the huge trumpets of the poisonous Datura. Here is my first passionflower picture

Soon we began to realize that this is one aggressive vine. It  outgrew its small trellis and was doing its best to crawl into the bedroom and along the fence.  We tore out one stem only to realize that behind an extremely pointy plant, which we fondly refer to as 'Mr Spikey', was a second stem which we decided to keep and try to train over a nearby arbor. It is now thickly covering the arbor, trailing down over the sides in a veritable curtain, and growing up through a small crack in the hot tub deck. 
For now we will keep it because in many ways it has gratifyingly done exactly what we wanted it to do which was to create more shade. I put a picture of it, along with Mr Spikey in extras.

*The name refers to the passion of Jesus, his last days and particularly the crucifixion in Christian theology, which may be why I find the symbolism attached to the various structures of the plant a trifle creepy.

I rather like the Hindu,name for this complex flower, Krishnakamala, with the blue color representing Krishna's blue aura. Krishna, it seems to me, never took himself too seriously, and in his youth hung out with a group of women called the Gopis, so he knew how to have a good time. Mostly, though, I  just like him because he is blue….