Passionflower is utilized for its gentle calming properties. Our organic passionflower can be tinctured, steeped as passionflower tea, and incorporated into herbal infusions.
Passionflower is cooling to the body, calming to the mind, and soothing to the spirit. It quells disquietude, calms the ruminating mind, and can promote natural relaxation and helps in coping with stress. This plant is gentle yet profound. It can be administered as a soothing tea for children or the elderly and can help to calm a restless mind. Other common names include apricot vine, maypop, and wild passionflower.
This vining plant has showy, intricate flowers, which caught the eye of Spanish missionaries who correlated the inflorescence with the Passion of the Christ and thus dubbed the name passionflower.
Further, there are five petals and sepals, and a collar of threadlike, frilly, lavender-coloured, coronal filaments. One begins to see where the "passion" came from…however, actually, the name has more virtuous origins.
The story goes that in 1569, in Peru, a Spanish doctor, Nicolas Monardes 'discovered' this plant. It eventually made it into the hands of Spanish missionaries who saw the flower as a physical representation of the crucifixion of Christ. The three stigmas represented the 'nails of crucifixion', the coronal filaments were the 'crown of thorns', the five stamens were the wounds, and the ten sepals were representative of ten of the disciples (Judas and Peter got left out due to their overall poor behaviour). Thus, this flower was used as a teaching tool, to tell the story of Christ to the indigenous people.
Passiflora sp. has a rich history of traditional use dating back to pre-historic times. Seeds that were thousands of years old were found around Virginia, where the Algonkian Indians thrived. Early European settlers have records of the Algonkian Indians eating the passionflower fruit. The Cherokee used P. incarnata root extensively for a variety of purposes. Additionally, various parts of the plants, including the fruits, were made into a beverage, and the leaves and young tendrils were boiled or fried and eaten. Various indigenous groups were known to use the plant as a topical poultice. P. incarnata has had documented uses in Europe going back to 1787.
In the spirit world, passionflower has been used as a magical charm to attract friendships and to bring peace, and the leaves can be placed in a house to illicit harmony and lessen discord.