Love in a mist, the common name for nigella damascena, is a beautiful but scary-looking flower up close and personal. Fine, hair-like bracts surround these flowers. Apparently, a variety of people from a variety of cultures have felt these bracts (and the blossoms) were suggestive. (The French sometimes call these flowers chevaux de Vénus.)
Personally, I’m not so sure I see the human-female sexual resemblence. Although all flowers are overtly sexual, with organs there for all to see in glorious color.
But if this flower is love in a mist—this name is a coy reference to female human sexual anatomy, in case you didn’t get it—then all I can say is, “Love hurts!”
The photo above lit from underneath with two macro flash units, the one below (which does seem to me to resemble a heart) was taken using ambient sunlight.
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