Passion flower
I found this cool flower in Kentucky at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum. It’s called Passiflora, or passion flowers/passion vines. There are about 550 species in this genus, and they’re all part of the Passifloraceae family.
People grow Passiflora for their amazing flowers, tasty fruits, traditional medicine uses, and even in dietary supplements and ayahuasca analogs. Some hybrids have even won awards from the Royal Horticultural Society!
Passion flowers have unique structures that are perfect for attracting pollinators. Bumblebees, carpenter bees, wasps, bats, and hummingbirds (especially hermits) are all fans. Some can even self-pollinate! Passiflora species often evolve closely with their pollinators. A cool example is the sword-billed hummingbird, which is the only pollinator for 37 species of high Andean Passiflora in the Tacsonia group.
A bunch of butterfly larvae also munch on Passiflora, including:
- Longwing butterflies (Heliconiinae)
- Cydno longwing (Heliconius cydno), which can eat multiple Passiflora species
- Gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), which goes for several types like Passiflora lutea and maypop (P. incarnata)
- American Sara longwing (Heliconius sara)
- Red postman (Heliconius erato)
- Asian leopard lacewing (Cethosia cyane)
- Postman butterfly (Heliconius melpomene), which prefers P. menispermifolia and P. oerstedii
- Zebra longwing (Heliconius charithonia), which feeds on yellow passion flower and a couple of others
- Banded orange (Dryadula phaetusa) that munches on P. tetrastylis
- Julia butterfly (Dryas iulia) that likes yellow passion flower and P. affinis
- Swift moth (Cibyra serta)
- Tawny coster (Acraea terpsicore), which eats Passiflora edulis, Passiflora foetida, and Passiflora subpeltata
