Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Passionvine


Another host plant - this one for the Gulf Fritillary.  Passionvine.  This one isn't the native variety (though it is native to South America, so it could easily have found its way here eventually); I believe this one is Blue Passionvine.  The Fritillaries don't care.  To them, it's just food.  Beware - as with most passionvines, it can be a bit invasive and spreads most by roots - surprisingly I've found that this one spreads by roots, but will pop up like 3' away from the mother plant.

3 comments:

Claude said...

These plants are great. Tje butterflies are great too, but i did have to eventually thin some of them out... evidently i had the only passionvine for miles and tje thing spent an entire summer eaten to sticks. I wanted a few blooms, dang it!

Ally said...

The passionvine volunteer you gave me was doing really well. This summer it bloomed beautifully. My first passionvine to make to a bloom cycle (Yay!). Now, the plant is covered with fritillary's eating it death. More than half the plant is gone and I keep hoping they will get their fill soon and leave a leaf or two so the plant can regenerate. If I come a knockin' for a replacement, you'll know why :-)

katina said...

@Ally - Don't worry. The plants I have by the front door spend most of their miserable lives as sticks. In fact, they just finally were able to have leaves on them for more than a day this last week. So, I'd guess that as long as the plant bloomed, it'll be fine.