I finally figured it out, maybe. I was watching a couple of movies where the cameraman (or woman) wasn't being too careful about disguising the fact that they were filming through glass, and the sunlight was making a star on the glass, like a snowflake, a starfish, a moonflower, or a morning glory. I recently noticed that the green blossom end of a tomato stalk, the part that holds the tomato like a gem in its setting, is also shaped like a starfish.

I have a personal theory that our environment is actually feedback about everything that interacts with it. Somehow, and the evidence for the evolution of plant life is mighty skimpy, these sun-mirroring plants found a way to express and reflect the idea of sunlight as they perceived it in a poetic interpretation of how they know sunlight.

Does that sound like a wacky and impossible theory? In that case take a good look at this moonflower and tell me why it looks like this, scientifically speaking.