Passion Vine July 21, 2013

This passion vine is growing in my backyard on an arbor that is constructed over the air conditioning units.  This is passiflora incarnata, the true, pure larval plant of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly.  And, I think it is the prettiest one of all that I have grown.

It is intermingled with Lady Banks rose, an extremely aggressive rose, so it competes very successfully with this passion vine.

About five years ago my passion vine was covered in the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars.  They are quite gruesome looking - orange bodies covered with these fleshy black spikes.  But it was an amazing spectacle - there were chrysalises all along the eves of the house and along the wrought iron fence and along the wooden fence.  It never happened again, the butterflies have laid their eggs someplace else every year since - some place more hospitable, I guess.  No summer was like that one, made all the more memorable because it was so unusual.