A Passion For Flight
Watching the Passion Vine go through it’s stages, I’ve changed my approach to growing them. I first saw the Passion Flower backpacking in Europe. I was wondering around the streets of Madrid, looking for a park to sleep in and came across a flower seemingly jumping out at me that can only be described as alien. The layers of distinct petals and the large stamen comin up with a tri-fold of pistils fanning out and drooping back downward blew me away. I plucked one and added it in my copy of The Brother’s Karamazov, the book I had promised to read while traveling around Europe, thick enough to press flowers from different places. It was worth the effort to read such a wonderful classic. Long live Alyosha.
I was looking for plants in 2012 at the shops off the Benbrook traffic circle when I found my first passion vines. I was very happy to give it a shot. I planted them at my place in Southwest Fort Worth and tended to them daily. They quickly began to take over the entire chain link fence and after a month or two, when the flowers started to appear, so did the caterpillars. They seemed to come out of nowhere and multiplied on the daily.
I had noticed a butterfly or two around but in my sleepy mind, I just kind of admired it, considered the possibilities it could be a good sign of things to come and then forgot about it and went back to watering, but the more I watched and learned the more I noticed what was going on. The females were constantly laying the eggs, hundreds a day and that’s where the caterpillars were coming from. At first I was flinging the things to the neighbors yard or hurling them down the street or laying them out in the sun to be baked or for a bird snack. I finally did some quick research and found out when the passion vine is grown around the gulf climates of Texas and Florida, they share a relationship with the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly. This species seeks out the passion vine with great precision and will travel hundreds of miles in their migrations.
The caterpillars, like an all engorging army, went on to decimate the entire plant despite any effort on my part to control it. When the caterpillars started munch on the vine it had multiple shoots covering the entire chain link fence about 12 feet long, and within a few weeks the entre plant was gone. All you could see were the stems of the vine wrapped through the metal fence. Getting closer revealed hundreds of chrysalis. Chrysalises…or chrysali…however you say that, but there were literally hundreds of them, and as I began to look around they were even on the opposite side of the drive way on the house and brick ledge of the window. I had flung them what I thought would be too far to ever survive, and yet they crawled all the way back up, and maybe making a wrong turn, climbed up the wall of the house and gave their transformation a shot. The whole thing was amazing.
When coming out of their chrysalis, the wings are so damp the weight of the moisture won’t allow the creature to fly. They are docile and at the mercy of any other butterfly around who might be looking to impregnate a female. You can also come and pick one up and put it on your nose or face and take pictures, which I totally did. As their wings dry, they start to stretch them out and expand them and in the photos it looks as if they could fly off at any moment and I had tamed them in some mystical way.
I only got one season with that plant, and some travels and moving out of that house left it for the next inhabitant. The beauty of the passion vine is that it will come back each year. I imagine whoever living there liking the plant and enjoying it as much as I have. The plant has really taught me so much.
When I moved out to Granbury in September 2020, the first thing I bought for my lot was a passion vine. I planted two of them in the ground on the side of the awning that gets the most sun. it’s been such a beautiful experience watching it over the course of this year. I imagine it growing so big and strong and taking over the whole yard as the seasons go by. With the cooler weather and recent rains, the vine is putting out more shoots and the butterflies are back. I wish I could name them and know them individually as new ones or the old ones. The OG that found the vine and started to colonize it. I love to say high to them in the morning and have at this point resisted to disturb them while their wings are drying and now attempt to coax them with my love.
It is amazing to watch the caterpillars turn into wonderful flying machines full of beauty and beloved by all. There’s a wonderful book I received as a gift back in my early 20s, Hope For The Flowers, that after reading it changed my perspective on life. The book is so bright in colors and in message, and the idea of transforming into something you are not is fascinating. If the destination of a caterpillar is to fly, then what could our destiny be as human beings?