My Favorite Flower

The flowers of Passiflora edulis are gorgeous. I particularly like the Fibonacci numbers of stamens, three of one kind, and five of another. Fibonacci numbers are, of course, related to the Golden Ratio, which is pretty much the mathematical definition of beauty.

At this time of year, these passion flowers are blooming vigorously here. Later, they will turn into passion fruit.

The name of the fruit comes from Christians seeing something so beautiful and being unable to appreciate it without relating it to Jesus somehow. I have to wonder if their interpretation of this flower had anything to do with the word stigmata referring to both the pollen receptors on a flower and the crucifixion wounds. From what I can tell the word comes from the ancient Greek word for tattoo! Go figure...

Thanks to sgazzetti for helping me identify this flower last year.