And so it was, i woke today and, as be my want on a saturday, headed down to Broadway Market. A 10 minute stroll around the corner from what is referred to as 'home'. There are two options for this trek: via the canal which is good in the sense that you walk next to 'water' (keep in mind, this excuse for water makes the yarra look positively drinkable!) and also it's pretty neat watching folks fishing or seeing the houseboats traveling down a at leisurely pace, especially when they must negotiate the lock (whereby the boats are raised or lowered in order to meet the level of water at a different part of the canal - engineering genius at it's finest) However, due to the narrow path one must travel and this being also a 'cycle route', the frequent interruption of bikes (especially on weekends) coming from behind can provide more stress than pleasure as is to be gained from a casual stroll. Instead, i opt for 'the high road' which runs parallel to the canal with a wire fence the only intrusion from the same sites. There are few bikes and room for all. As it turns out this was a fortuitous decision this morning. Halfway through the journey my eye was drawn to a flower growing from a vine substantially wrapped around a fence surrounding a council estate. I took another look and was more curious as I had never seen a flower like it. I jumped a small fence to take a closer look and indeed I was even more surprised when examining the specimen close up. There were many layers. It's in 4D! i exclaimed. The flower itself was rather stunning/perplexing. 2 layers, a green circle in the middle, a thin purple line in the middle of this, hundreds of purple/white/purple shoots coming out of this etc... But then on top of this, it had a protruding stem out of the flower itself which sprouted out into another complex pattern - it was a strange and beautiful thing indeed. It was the most 'overt' example of the mandlebrot set that i had seen in quite awhile and along with this, it also conjured up the image in the film 'alien' whereby a monster "hideous" protrudes from the mouth of the original monster. The physical make up of this flower took on a similar design by way of the protrusion. As there were a few flowers and many on the way to 'public exposure', i took one away with me. I took one simply to try and identify what it was exactly.

I felt like a bit of a tit walking around broadway with it and my pals down that way, although acknowledging the 'alien' aura hardly shared my enthusiasm. One friend Max did exclaim - "ah yes i have seen those around, very strange. I have lived here for 12 years but have not noticed them before". He continued, "they seem to be everywhere this year, i think it's some kind of police surveillance, a new form of cctv", which although making me laugh, brought me no closer to finding out what it was exactly. It was only when going to the film shop (my local dvd store and without a doubt the best 'rental' dvd store i have ever been to, i am very fortunate indeed to live near this outlet and the uber nice humans there always look after me in the most golden fashion) that one of the staff (after nearly crushing it with a block of wood!) said to me "oh! i nearly crushed your passionflower". I turned around "what is it?" - she said "a passionflower, a really amazing flower". Not only do i get great tips on films and super nice 'mates rates' - i get advice on the most unlikely aspects of our surroundings! I'm telling ya this store needs to be heritage listed. So that was that. A stroll back home and a search on the web and what does one come up with? Well it seems our strange humble flower has quite the history. A loaded little number indeed:

from Passiflora online

"The 'Passion flower' (Flos passionis) acquired its name from descriptions of its flower parts supplied in the Seventeenth Century by Spanish priests in South America, known at that time as the 'New Spain'. It was known by the Spanish as "La Flor de las cinco Llagas" or the 'The Flower With The Five Wounds.' 'Passionis' refers to (Christ's) suffering. The parts were interpreted from drawings and dried plants by Giacomo Bosio, a churchman and historian, in Rome (1609), as representing various elements of the Crucifixion".

from Wikipedia:

"The passion in it's name 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 72 radial filaments (or corona) 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). In Germany it was once known as Muttergottes-Schuzchen (Mother-of-God's Star)".

In Japan, they are known as clock-faced flowers, and recently have become a symbol for homosexual youths".

!! Christ's suffering, stigmata, homosexuality !! Who would have thought? I am not a big 'flower human' but like most species i do tend to take note of the more bizarre examples of such life form (think this, erm, 'stems' from my folks having a "bird of paradise" growing in our front yard when i was a tacker in their abode). And such was life on this rather pleasant Saturday morning in Dalston/Hackney for moi.