The Bee and Me

Most people, when they hear the word passionflower, think of the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) or its exotic cousins. However, most of our native passionflowers are tiny in comparison, and easily overlooked. The yellow passionflower (P. lutea) is a good example. With this year's wet summer, this passionflower is abundant in my area of Texas.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took this afternoon. The first image is of the vine with flowers. Each flower in this photo is about the size of a quarter. The second image is of the flower itself. If you know the relative size of a green sweat bee (tiny) you get a good idea of the size of the flower.

The gulf fritillary is just one of the butterflies that depends on the foliage to feed its caterpillars. Zebaras and julias (Heliconians) are two other examples. Even more incredible is the bee (Anthemurgus passiflorae) that feeds its young pollen only from Passiflora lutea!

Need good examples of biodiversity? Now you have them.