There is always something
blooming in my field of dreams~
When it’s not sprouting daisies or
Lacy Queen Anne,
it’s growing grass to be baled for hay.
I walked over to look at the shrubs bordering
the field, full of delicate pink blooms~
And to my surprise, saw
Passion Flower
blooming in the grass~
Looking extremely exotic and out
of place growing in a hayfield~
I was able to identify
it thanks to my
Portmeirion Botanic Garden~
Who says dish collecting
isn’t educational?
An unexpected and
happy surprise!
I tried to identify the shrubs by their leaves
and wispy blooms but had no luck~
Portmeirion doesn’t have
a botanical image for it :)
If anyone knows what it is,
please satisfy my curiosity!
The leaves grow in threes, and it’s pretty
unremarkable when it’s not blooming.
And the bees love the pink flowers~
Happy Dishing
& Blooms to You!
Beautiful-did they produce any passion fruit for you?
Lindas flores. Aqui no Brasil a flor do maracujá dá frutos que ao estar maduro tem a casca na cor amarela, aqui não é na cor marrom ou ferrugem como aí no seu país.
What a beautiful plant and plate. Were you able to transplant it to a better location to save it?
It’s very invasive, I think I’ll admire it from afar :)
What a gorgeous find. I have a Passion Plant and it blooms yearly. It is a little invasive, but can be controlled easily. The Passion Flower (Passiflora). is also known for being the’ “Symbol of Christ’s Passion and Cross”: including his scourging, crowning with thorns, three nails and five wounds.
—Reparation Through Flowers. Here’s some history…
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.
* The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
* The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (less St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot 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.
* 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 (four by the nails and one by the lance).
* The blue and white colours of many species’ flowers represent Heaven and Purity.
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”). German names include Christus-Krone (“Christ’s crown”), Christus-Strauss (“Christ’s bouquet”), Dorn-Krone (“crown of thorns”), Jesus-Leiden (“Jesus’ passion”), Marter (“passion”) or Muttergottes-Stern (“Mother of God’s star”).
Very pretty! That’s neat that you have a plate with the flower to match! I don’t know what the pink flower is but I know you can google wild flowers for your state and see if you can find it that way.
It’s a shrub, I’ve googled my fingers off :)
That is cool that you found the same flower growing that is on your dishes. We had those pink flowers things growing here too and don’t have a clue what they are. They just grow wild on the edge of our wooded area.
Good morning, Mary! Happy Sunday.
Mary, I remember as a young girl that I would come upon passion flowers growing wild in the fields. We called them May Pops because we would stomp on the fruit and it would make a popping sound!. Your mosaic of your photos and the botanical illustration on the Portmeirion is just beautiful!
So lovely to look upon the flower and the plate together. Bonnie Keearns wrote a beautiful and very informative comment on the Passion Plant, thank you.
The pink blossom should be named Pink Bee-Lovely. I see that the bees love it.
Look up Lespedeza and see if that’s it. It frequently is mixed in with the hay we get for our horses.
YES! Thank you Janet I had no luck finding it! I just read that it’s put in fields to release nitrogen so less fertilizer is needed. The pink flowers are a bonus :)
Mary, not only did you happen upon the passion flower, but then your creative mind produced this beautiful post. The botanical plates are gorgeous. I’ve often thought they would make a lovely presentation for a garden club. Set a beautiful table with these dishes and then give a little talk on the flowers presented. Your photos are exquisite combining the plate with the real specimen. The pink blooms are charming. I agree with Janet, I think it could be lespedeza.
Enjoy your day!
What a treasure to find passion flower growing and blooming among the blades of grass. Hope you are enjoying your weekend!
I love “maypops” or passion flower and tried to grow a cultivated version but it is so invasive (I still pull up some radical sprigs of of trying to come up in my beds). About 15 years ago I changed our our daily dishes to Portmeirion specifically because it featured my favorite flower. So beautiful!
What a happy surprise!! Will you be transplanting it to your yard?
I love those pink flowers too! Thanks for such a fun post! :)
We have passion fruit vines growing in our yard…producing fruit at the moment – usually get fruit twice a year. We love the juice and use it to flavor all manner of things.
The ‘commentator’ from Brasil is not quite correct in her observation; she says that in her country the fruit of the ‘maracujá’ is ripe when the fruit is yellow on the outside and not like in our country where the fruit is rust color…
There are different varieties and some are ripe when yellow and some are ripe when purple and some are ripe when rust colored. It all depends on the variety. The one growing in my yard is the one with the yellow fruit.
so you live on a lake AND a field? now i’m just jealous! i grow passion flowers here in south florida…the blue and purple or red variety. they bring butterflies. we use them a lot to float in a punch bowl. i suppose you already that the flower represents the passion of Christ. i love love those dishes.
What a beautiful flower! Thank you for sharing. Bonnie, great info. Thank for that!
How fun that the dish helped you identify the flower! Also fun that it just decided to grow in the field like that-enjoy:@)
~MarY`
That is so pretty!
Paula
Love your photos and blog. I have the same dishes!
Aren’t passion flowers just the most amazing things? I remember the first time that I saw one I had a hard time believing it was real.
You found a passion flower in a hay field…wow!…it is gorgeous and so are the dishes…I so want those dishes to replace my everyday dishes…they are so beautiful and “happy”….Hope you had a great weekend!
I have wanted those dishes for a very long time. :) The Passion flower is so beautiful. So I guess it grows wild in your zone. I did not know it was a wild plant. Too bad it’s so invasive, because it is so very beautiful.
What a wonderful find! You have the best of both worlds: a lAKE and a field of flowers!!!!!!!! I love, LOVE those dishes, wish I had soe. Hope you had a good weekend. I have my fingers AND toes crossed right now……………hopefully can fill you in soon…………
The passion flower you found in the field and the ones on your plates are pretty, glad you learned some horticulture from your china.
Such beautiful flowers! The passion plant among them is quit strange but really gorgeous.
Oh Mary, I am so glad you shared the flower and your plate. My niece in Illinois recently look a picture of this flower and I had no clue what it was Now I know and will let her know.
I love your images of the field flowers – so beautiful – and so different to here. And that passion flower is glorious. You can get some beautiful botanical plates these days – but then perhaps you always could!
Have a great week. Joining you through Mosaic Monday.
WOW…Gorgeous! I love the passion flowers. And the field is beautiful, the flowers are all so pretty. Beautiful images and a lovely post. Have a happy week!
I am ecstatic to know that dish collecting is educational! I feel so much better about it now, it’s all for science! or botany! Your field of dreams is indeed magical and I hesitate to admit that I always thought the flower on the Portmeirion Botanical plate was just an artist’s imagination, I had no idea that was a real flower, or that was why that beautiful china was named so…I obviously need to pay more attention, or collect more dishes! How your heart must have sung when you actually spotted that beauty!
Isn’t “I Spy…” FUN! What a find! franki
That’s it. A wonderful excuse to purchase some botanical print dishes – they are educational! And so beautiful. I love the passion flower in the field and on the plate.
time has been thin, but i saw this on my cell and was wild over it. prettiest combo you have done so far, and what i love is it was a surprise for you to stumble on it. when i first hooked up with scott and gardening became my passion 30 years ago i have never forgetten when my first passion flower bloomed, it was like a kaleidoscope to me, i was mesmerized, shocked at natures powers… you reminded me of that moment when you found this in yoru field, thanks for reminding me how joyful the first moments are again~
I too have Passion Flowr growing in my yard. I disagree that it is invasive as I have “controlled” mine for over five years. If I see a vine begin to grow in an area where I don’t want it I just pull it out. I have actually used a lot of those as starters and have shared with friends and neighbors. The smell is just heavenly. Each bloom will only last for one day but mine will bloom from June through October when we get our first heavy frost.
What a beautiful find! They are the most intricate and lovely flowers. Glad you found your answer on the shrub – I would have been no help at all. Love the collage with the plate :)
This post is absolutely beautiful and I hate to say it, because I am not bragging…they remind me of some of the images that I so enjoy, the scenes so similar and actually some that I will be sharing in a couple of weeks…I am so behind on everything, including my blogging entries. I really enjoyed this visit very much~
I google Lespedeza like Janet said and clicked on images. I think she is correct. Now I want to know how that passion flower found its way to a hay field.
The Passion Flower is a stunning plant.They grow like crazy.
I’ve had those passion flower vines just pop up in the middle of my flower beds too…I’m located in northeastern TN. I know they will take over because I have planted them next to a chain link fence in the foothills outside of San Diego. The are prolific growers and flowerers AND the benefit is it is a host plant for the frittilarie (sp?) butterflies and they will munch the leaves down to nothing, the the eggs laid by the butterflies will feast and hatch out new buttlerflies….It’s AWESOME!