The Simplest Things Are Often The Most Beautiful

Passion Flower / Maypop

Wildflower Beauty

One of the sure signs, that Summer is waning, is the return of the Passion Flower..

Resembling something of an underwater sea-creature, the Passion Flower resides far from the ocean, in land-locked Tennessee.

It was first named as the official state flower in 1919 and then in 1939 the iris was also named the state flower. In 1973 legislation was passed designating the passion flower as the state wildflower and the iris as the state cultivated flower.

Also known as the maypop, wild apricot and the Ocoee, passion flowers grow wild in the southern United States and South America. Ocoee is the Indian name for the passion flower (also used in the name of the Ocoee River and valley in Tennessee and the city of Ocoee in Florida). American Indians considered Ocoee the most beautiful of flowers.
I can't help but agree.

Searching For Shade

"Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here,
that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones."

Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir

Cooling off with a walk in the woods

Shady canopies

Goldenrod in bloom


Wild Blackberry Vines

Tennessee State Wildflower, The Passionflower

Bouncing Bet, Soapwort