Here is a beautiful Twinevine (Funastrum cynanchoides I believe) that i found while hiking in a canyon near my home. It was just covered in butterflies and bees. Has anyone here ever collected seed & tried to grow this in their yard? Any drawbacks that you know of?
Wow Angele!! that is a beautiful picture. I wish I had experience with it, it is native to Texas also and larval host for the Monarch butterfly, but I have never seen it, you were very lucky to find it.
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=FUCY
Josephine.
Thanks Josephine. I visited it several days and found probably a dozen Queen and a couple of Monarch along with the bees. What a sight!
Here are 2 of the Queen Butterfly - Danaus gilippus on the same plant
Making me work are ya? We don't have anything like that around here in the Midwest and if I did see it while hiking about NM and AZ, I didn't recognize it for what it was. I went online and found this which is another species of Funastrum and a really attractive plant too-
http://www.delange.org/MilkweedNarrowleaf/MilkweedNarrowleaf.htm
I have to send a link to both of these plants to my aunt who lives in AZ. She enjoys butterflies (hasn't acquired a taste for bees just yet as she's afraid of being stung). She lives south of Phoenix but also inherited a trailer on some land north of Flagstaff so it should work in nicely with what little she has at one or the other place.
Very nice photos.
Very nice picture of the Queens Angele, and a very nice link too Equilibrium.
That plant I found kinda reminded me of a hoya for some reason. Neat colors. I'd like to get some seed of that. I checked that plant out a little bit and that would be a good one for my aunt. I've grown a few plants for her for her garden that I've sent out that way to her with my Dad but it's so darn hard getting my hands on seed for her that it's rather frustrating. She'd like both plants very much because she really loves looking out her window to see what's going on outside. It's the butterflies she really likes.
Thank you again Josephine! It is such a treat to see something like this while hiking in a scrub desert.
I didn't collect any seed this year and when I went back a couple of weeks ago the pods were all split open & the seeds were long gone. Hopefully I will see it again this year and would be happy to collect some for your Aunt if I do.
Ohhh, thank you. Are there any online sources to buy that particular seed that you know of or is the hunt going to be on?
I haven't found any to buy.
Don't laugh too hard but I just went & turned my coat pockets inside out & I think I found some of the seed. ROFL! I'm going to see if I can sprout them. It is going to be 100% blind luck if they grow because I haven't found any tips on growing it either. I have had pretty good luck in finding the same plants growing in the canyon year after year so maybe if we don't have a terrible drought I'll find it again.
Lucky you for finding your seed! There was a thread recently where somebody was mentioning they had some Redbud seeds and wanted some info on propagating the seed. That reminded me that I had some Redbud seeds stashed somewhere out in my car. My car looks as if homeless people live in it with all the kid junk in there so to find some seeds I had totally forgotten about from last fall was going to be about the equivalent of undertaking a major archeological dig. I excavated that car in no time flat because I wanted that seed really bad and goshdarnitall if I didn't find the seeds. I placed them in my pocket and drove off to pick up kids. I got home and went to pull out the seed to start winter sowing it and it was all gone save one empty pod. I have no idea what happened to my seed but somewhere getting in and out and in and out and in and out of the car dispersed them. Easy come and easy go. Oh well, at least they're native to the next county over. Consider them planted. Big oopsie though because I wanted to germinate them for me.
LOL!
That's a neat vine! I need to create some more places for vines...
This stuff is weedy all over Las Cruces. Covers many of the chain-link fences on the NMSU campus and elsewhere. I like it but I know some people here who despise it because it'll take over if you let it and pulling it leaves your hands sticky and bad-smelling.
I call it Sarcostemma cynanchoides but haven't really read the rationale for the various changes in genus for these guys.
Thanks for the info Patrick. Much appreciated! I am trying to sprout some & if they get going I'll try it in a pot & give it an old tree stump or something to crawl over. I'll remove the seed pods too. Glad you warned me.
Well, in my opinion a plant that is larval food for butterflies is a very good plant to have.
I have a butterfly garden and I am always on the lookout for larval food plants.
Absolutely in agreement Josephine.. if I get it going & it seeds I'll be happy to send you some.
Thank you Angele, I will get some Mexican Hat seed for you as well.
