Recent rains have doused my landscape with moisture aplenty, encouraging feisty growth–and passionate exchanges between Gulf fritillary butterflies. The Passionflower vine, in particular, is growing crazy. It happens to be the host plant for the Gulf fritillary–that is, the plant on which it lays its eggs.

Showy tendril-laced flowers, colorful, edible fruits, and a tendency to jump fences and property lines paint a rambunctious picture of Passionflower. That said, this gregarious vine serves as an extreme workhorse in the landscape, ranking as a Plant with Purpose in my recent book. 

Passionflower fruits are beautiful and edible. Birds devour them. I’ve been known to make holiday wreaths out of them. –Photo by Monika Maeckle

Birds love its fruits and several species of butterflies host on its fast-growing foliage. I often witness cardinals clinging to my screened porch which the vine dominates each summer. The birds grasp the screen while pecking holes in the hollow, bright magenta fruits, grabbing the protein-rich, black seeds,  with their beaks. Passionflower pollinators include bats, hummingbirds, butterflies, wasps and bees. 

Passiflora foetida, known as Corona de Cristo or as Stinking passionflower because of its strong smelling bloom, grows profusely here in Texas and other hot climates. It’s one of eight species native to Texas (and one of 500+ species in existence) with dramatic light purple flowers, graced with white and maroon tendrils. The vine produces bright red fruits the size of ping pong balls from summer through November.

Get a room! Gulf fritillaries get feisty in my downtown garden. –Photo by Monika Maeckle

You might think that the Corona de Cristo—crown of Christ–nickname comes from the trinity of stigmas that leap from the flower’s center. But Corona de Cristo has its own narrative, cultivated by Spanish Christian missionaries in the 1600s. They interpreted the Passiflora flower as a metaphor for Christ’s death and assigned each part of the complex flower a role in the crucifixion.

According to multiple sources, the leaves represent the hands of Christ’s persecutors while the tendrils stand for the whips used to flagellate him. The five sepals and five petals symbolize the ten faithful apostles (excluding St. Peter the denier, and Judas the betrayer). The five anthers, or male parts of the plant, signify the five wounds, while the three stigmas, or female parts, represent the nails used to seal Christ to the cross. The filaments, or thin stems that support the anthers, radiate from the corona and  symbolize a crown of thorns. Swedish botanist Carl Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy, would later name the flower for this theological translation.

Even more interesting than the origin of its name, Corona de Cristo’s sticky feathery hairs which envelope its young fruits, snag uninvited pests in their grasp. The plant hairs secrete chemicals that break down the insects and allow it to absorb nutrients from its victims. This raises an interesting question: should Stinking passionflower/Corona de Cristo join the Venus flytrap as a distinguished carnivorous plant?  The science, as they say, is in progress.

If the above doesn’t move you to add some kind of passionflower to your landscape, then note that the plant also plays host not only to the Gulf fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, the Variegated fritillary, Mexican Silverspot, Julia and Heliconian butterflies. 

In the picture above right, a male Gulf fritillary seizes a female, in an act of copulation. The male will transfer a “nuptial gift,” known in science as a spermatophore, to the female over the

Passionflower fruits are edible. This variety, Passiflora foetida, is bright magenta, and filled with black seeds and gelatinous matter. –Photo by Matti Bills

course of hours. The biological bundle includes not only sperm for reproduction, but also nutrition for sustenance. The butterflies can remain in this “courtship flight” for hours. The pair I recently photographed in my garden flitted from plant to plant with the male lifting the female and carrying her to more desirable locations for about 15 minutes as I tried to capture a good photo.

In Texas, the Gulf fritillary is a common visitor from spring through fall and its caterpillars feast voraciously on the rapid growth of various Passionflower species. The spiky orange-and-black caterpillars prefer the underside of the three-lobed leaves, presumably to escape our heat and the radar of bird predators.

The females lay their yellow ribbed eggs singly on host plants. They hatch in four – eight days, and produce the spiky orange-and–black caterpillars mentioned above. (They’re harmless to the touch, by the way.) After about two weeks a caterpillar, the fritillary morphs into a slender, curved pupa that can range in color from greenish brown to brown with various spots of grey or brown. A great disguise as a dead leaf.

Don’t forget that the fruits of various Passionflower species are edible. They range from green and firm to red and balloon-like.  The ones in my yard are mostly air and serve well as a garnish on salads or an addition to smoothies. The taste is subtle, slightly sweet, with gelatinous matter surrounding the high-fiber seeds.  NOTE: The leaves of of Passiflora caerulea, and introduced species known as Bluecrown passionflower, can be toxic.

Learn more about Passionflower and other edible plants with purpose at our Author Dinner July 16 at Pharm Table in San Antonio. I’ll be talking with guests about my book, Plants with Purpose: Twenty-five Ecosystem Multitaskers (including Passionflower!), and guest Chef Matti Bills, owner operator at Howdy Child in San Antonio and Three Six General in San Marcos, will assemble an amazing dinner of foraged and locally farmed foods. Partial proceeds to benefit San Antonio’s Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival, which celebrates its 10th birthday this year.

Don’t miss it! Details below.

Join us on July 16 in San Antonio for a Foraged Purposeful Author Dinner!

TOP PHOTO: Bee nectars/gathers pollen on Passionflower vine. –Photo by Monika Maeckle

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