Bleeding hearts are some of my very favorite flowers and always remind me of my Great Aunt Ruth, who had the very first ones I ever saw as a kid. I remember being utterly fascinated with the ones in her front yard and sitting on the stoop, staring at them for what seemed like hours -- but I was a kid, so it was probably five minutes - hey, that's a long time when you're seven. Whatever it was, it was long enough for me to learn that if you turn the heart upside down and pull it open slightly, it looks like a lady in a bathtub. Please tell me I'm not the only one who figured that out.

I have tried desperately to get big lovely bushes like the ones she had to grow in my flower beds here, but between too much sun, possums, and neighbor kids who help weed the flower beds by pulling the entire plant out of the ground, it's been slow going. Still, I get a few nice blooms each year. The Dormouse loves them too, but she can't remember what they are called and refers to them as "Bloody Hearts." Until I heard her call them this, it never occurred to me that it's quite possible that the reason I loved them so much as a kid is because they appealed to what would later become a adult fascination with all that is morbid.

Less talk, more gore:


And, for clarification, the lady in the bathtub:


Perhaps I needed more friends when I was a kid.