Saturday, August 9, 2008

Passiflora suberosa Corky Stem Passion Vine





Passiflora suberosa
Family: Passifloraceae •
Genus: Passiflora •
Species: suberosa L. •
Country of Origin: Native to Florida •
Common Names: corky passionflower, devil's pumpkin, huehue haole, indigo berry, wild passionfruit •

This is our native Florida passion vine. I grow it for the two kinds of butterflies that use it as a larval food i.e. the Zebra Longwing (Heliconius charithonia) and the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). It has interesting miniature flowers typical of this genus and a one of a kind "corky" trunk. These vines have volunteered in my yard as long as I've been gardening. I recognized the flowers did a little research and discovered that these plants were native to Florida. I've since let them grow wherever the pop up. I was rewarded with a multitude of butterflies in my yard on a daily basis.



Creative Commons License
Passiflora suberosa by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

4 comments:

Shibaguyz said...

Very cool native plant.

Anonymous said...

That is a really interesting native, I like the cool texture of the bark & the flower is so tiny.

Wicked Gardener said...

I've never seen one so tiny! The Gulf Fritillary chews up my passion vine. Any thoughts on controlling them? I don't like to use pesticide (defeats the purpose anyway) so pick them off, but my vine still looks pretty shabby.

Eric Bronson said...

@Wicked Gardener. Control them? Why?
Anyway I bet if you plant this native vine they will spend less time chewing on your ornamental passion vine!