The Passion Flower

 (Léase en español / Read in Spanish)

If you were hoping to see exotic, this is it! (Well, sort of. More on that later...) Allow us to introduce you to the Passionflower. We found this plant growing in a passage way which led to the first place we stayed in Tarija.

Passiflora incarnata

Its principal characteristic is the strange form of its flowers. As you can see, they
have amazingly intricate patterns in the petals, rays, styles and stamens.

Passiflora incarnata

Although there are about 400 species of the passionflower, these photos show the Passiflora incarnata. Common names of the passionflower include maypop, purple passionflower, true passionflower, wild apricot, and wild passion vine. It is of the family Passifloraceae.

This plant and its fruit are very popular with wildlife. We saw frogs, insects and birds dwelling among the vine. I also suspect that the first giant spider we encountered may have come from here.

But why did I say ‘exotic... sort of’? Well, while doing research for this post, I learned that the Cherokee in the area of Tennessee, U.S. called it Ocoee. In fact the Ocoee River and valley are named after this plant. And to top it off, would you believe that this supposedly exotic flower is the official Tennessee State Wildflower! We were ‘neighbors’ in Kentucky for 10 years and never knew that or saw one of these. So I guess they are not as exotic as I thought.

Want to know where the Passion Flower got it’s name? Read about it in this blog post here.

 (Léase en español / Read in Spanish)