Oops!

Today I made a discovery.

Passion flower:









Clematis:






It would seem that the woman at the Blue Ridge Mountain Pottery, who told my daughter and husband what that lovely purple vining flower on her fence was called, was wrong! (How cute they were trying to find out the name of that plant even then, so they could get me one...)

So I am now the proud owner of the crazy paramecium-looking, spaceship-resembling "passion flower" instead of the clematis they had thought they were getting. (Ours has buds, but had yet to bloom when they purchased it, and still has not done so.)

From Wikipedia: "Passion" does not refer to love, but to 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 as symbols of Crucifixion. For example: the radial filaments which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower represent the Crown of Thorns. The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles. The top 3 stigmata represent the 3 nails and the lower 5 anthers represent 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).

Well, that's cool and all, but the fact that large carpenter bees are needed just to pollinate the thing will likely keep it from being practical in our little home garden. Let's hope the nursery will take it back or exchange it!