A Jamaican man living in New York said a purple flower in his backyard that he said resembles the Hindu god Ganesh has cured him of pain.

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Sam Lal, 60, said the nearly 4-foot-tall flower began to take on the shape of an elephant's head and trunk in August, two months after the flower first began growing, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

Lal, a Hindu, said he believes the flower is an incarnation of the elephant-headed god Ganesh and came to his home in the city's Queens borough to cure him of pain stemming from a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

"This formation came to heal my illness," Lal said. "They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me."

Horticulturalists at the Queens Botanical Garden said the purple flower, which was identified as a member of the amaranth family, is not native to the United States. They said it is unusual for the flower to take on the shape of an elephant's head.

"For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing," garden spokesman Tim Heimerle said.

However, the spokesman said the flower is too fragile to have been sculpted into its shape.

"Nature is a strange thing, and it's possible it may have just done that spontaneously, but who's to say," Heimerle said.