Revision of Passiflora Subgenus Decaloba ... - Passion Flowers

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In 1554, Nicolas Monardes published a manuscript describing the medicinal
plants of the West Indies (Monardes, 1574). In it he devoted a small section to
the “granadilla.” The plant that he described was delivered to him from Peru and
was used by both the Spanish and indigenous peoples there as a refreshing
drink; it was also used medicinally as a cathartic. Furthermore, this was the first
published account of the religious significance of the passionflower, though the
symbolism and fame of the plant were already known in Europe by that time
(Kugler, 1997; Morren, 1842).
In 1610, an Augustinian friar named Emmanuel de Villegas arrived in Rome
with drawings of a passionflower. He showed them to Giacomo Bosio, an Italian
ecclesiastic and historian, who found the flower “stupendously marvelous.” Bosio
then began to receive additional drawings and descriptions of the passionflower
from Mexican Jesuits (Hoch, 1934; Kugler, 1997; Morren, 1842; Vanderplank,
2000). In 1609, Simon Parlasca, a Dominican at the University of Bologna,
illustrated and described what Linnaeus later called Passiflora incarnata L.,
accompanied by religious poetry (cited in Hallman 1749, Hoch 1934, Linnaeus
1745, and MacDougal 1994). With the acquisition of these additional illustrations
and accounts, Bosio decided that it was his obligation to present to the world the
flos passionis as the most extraordinary example of the passion of Christ
discovered in forest or field (Hoch, 1934). In his Della Trionfante e Gloriosa
Croce (1610), Bosio described the flower as having white petals tinged with rose.
The three stigmas exemplified the nails that were used to secure Christ’s feet
and hands to the cross. The outer corona represented the crown of thorns and