Has anyone ever seen a passion flower or know of the story that goes with it? It is a purple and white flower with attributes called: the crown of thorns, the holy trinity and other mysteries of Christ's life. It grows on a vine in warm climates and it resembles AzureStar's avatar but has more petals and a different design.
Is there a flower that anyone can think of that reminds you of an orger that posts here?

this one reminds me of MrBliss:


Giant Flower Makes Big Stink—For a Limited Time

Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News
July 18, 2002


The Amorphophallus titanum, the world's biggest and worst-smelling flower, is currently exhibiting its stinky splendor at the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas, California.
The plant, also called titan arum, but popularly known as the corpse flower, blooms only a few times in its 40-year life span, and the bloom lasts for two and a half days at the most. During the first eight hours, the bloom emits a scent that has been variously described as similar to that of rotting eggs, a dead elephant, an outhouse in sweltering heat—and worse. But what is putrid to humans is a siren call to the carrion beetles that pollinate the flowers. They can smell the stench for miles.

Seeing the titan arum in bloom is not as rare as it once was, but it remains a huge crowd pleaser. The first bloom occurred in the United States in 1937 at the New York Botanical Garden, and drew such large crowds that it was named the official flower of the Bronx—a status it recently lost to the daylily.


Stinky Flower

Photograph by Claire Ehrlinger/Quail Botanical Gardens


Since then there have been fewer than 20 recorded blooms in the United States. Thousands of people have passed through the Quail Botanical Gardens in the last several days to view the towering flower.

Devil's Tongue

If you've never seen the plant, its name, Amorphophallus titanium, provides a clue as to why matrons of the Victorian age prevented young ladies from seeing it. Amorpho is the Greek root word for "shapeless," and phallus is the Greek word for "penis"; titanium, of course, means "huge." The plant is also called Devil's Tongue and Snake Palm.

First discovered in Sumatra's rain forests in 1878 by Odoardo Beccari, an Italian botanist, the corpse flower is a monsoon plant. During the dry season the tuber—the fleshy stem of the plant, which can weigh 100 pounds or more—remains dormant underground. When the rains come, it shoots up a single leaf that separates at the top.

"It kind of looks like a palm tree," said Paul Beeman, a plant technician at the University of Washington's greenhouse, where two plants bloomed recently without media fanfare, one in May and one in July. "And it can be quite large; up to 12 feet [3.6 meters] tall with a 15-foot [4.6 meter] spread." At the end of the growing season, the leaf dies and the tuber returns to dormancy.

If the tuber is big enough, instead of a leaf, a stalk-like structure called an inflorescence emerges. The inflorescence is the flowering part of the plant, and consists of a central shaft called a spadix. From its base comes a modified leaf called a spathe.

The spadix can grow several inches a day. A mature bloom could grow to be 12 feet (3.7 meters) tall, although so far blooms cultivated in the United States have been between 18 inches (46 centimeters)—"that one was remarkably tiny," said Beeman—to 8.5 feet (3 meters) tall. About six weeks after emerging, the inflorescence, which contains hundreds of tiny flowers, blooms—usually around midnight.

Around 48 hours later, the stink phase is over and the bloom begins to collapse. The plant won't bloom again for at least a couple of years.

Life in the Wild

No one knows how common the titan arum is in the wild; many suspect it is endangered. Its only known habitat is the rain forests of Sumatra, which are being steadily eroded by deforestation and human encroachment. The tubers are also being dug up for food and for collectors.

Seeds collected during an expedition in 1993 were distributed to growers around the country, and more botanical gardens and university greenhouses are growing it, making blooming events more common.

The corpse flower is not difficult to cultivate, says Beeman. They can easily become stunted and need a lot of root room, "but once you've figured that out it's not rocket science anymore," he said. The plant's sheer size though can be a limiting factor in greenhouses with restricted space.

The plant at the Quail Botanical Garden was grown from seed by Jim Booman, a local grower.

XxAxX said:

...

ok ok. it was childish of me to make a bad joke like that at your expense.

i'm sorry sweetie.

XxAxX said:

don't be sorry.. lord knows i dish enough out ... i can take a joke

XxAxX said:

I think everyone here is as beautiful as a

I thought you were talking about the erotic store in Oakland

CalhounSq said:

been there!

INSATIABLE said:

As have I

CalhounSq said:

aaow!!! (high-five)