Memorial Day Sale

My best friend and I went to the local botanical garden about 15 minutes south of where I live. I had been at Strybing earlier this month, and I already had the itch to go see more Passiflora. Having been to South Coast Botanical Garden once before, I knew there was a green house loaded with Decalobas and one rogue P. caerulea trying to choke out the intentional vegetation. But last time I was there, very little was in bloom. I wanted to see if this time of year would be different.

Just inside the front gate after checking in I noticed there were some plants for sale. Each had little placards with a picture and the name of the genus and species. The first one that I saw was P. trisecta. I remember saying something to the effect of, "oh hey, trisecta, I have that one." Then, as my eyes fell on more of the selection I realized that two folding tables were full of Passiflora! I don't think I said anything, but if I did it was probably something like, "look!"

Needless to say, I spent a good while checking every tag while I decided which lucky little plants would be coming home with me. My friend counted 19 species, and I purchased 6 of those, including:

• P. penduliflora
• P. karwinskii
• P. guatemalensis
• P. tucumanensis
• P. porphyretica var. angustata
• P. misera

Having checked out with my new additions, I purchased a membership, and regrouped to begin what we had come to the garden to do. But first! there were several gulf fritillary butterflies hovering around a bush near the main gate. If I ever get to hunt for species in the wild, I know to follow these buggers. They're notorious Passiflora pests. They seem to lay their eggs almost exclusively on the Passiflora greenery. In fact there was a little caterpillar on one of the plants that I purchased (that my best friend kindly returned to the garden). The butterflies were flirting with a vine that was coming up from an apparently extensive root system. I couldn't make out the species or cultivar from the wilted flowers, but one of the shoots found its way into my camera bag, so hopefully I'll find out eventually.

We eventually did make it into the garden a little later than we had planned. The greenhouse was the necessary stop, and we found it groomed since our last visit. But, there were only two Passiflora in bloom there: P. 'Amethyst' and P. capsularis. The rest were laden with buds, which means that I'll have to make good use of my new membership and revisit later this season when I think they're opening based on my own plants.