Passion Vine

Passiflora incarnata

Purple passionflower is a fabulous vine for hot-weather fragrant flowers.

It’s also the larval plant for several butterflies, including the Gulf fritillary and Zebra longwing.  Without food to nurture them in this stage, we won’t get the beautiful butterflies. If you have a very young plant, however, they can overwhelm it.  Consider adding other plants and gently moving some of the larva. Once the plant is older, it will rebound from the feeding onslaught.

It likes sun to part shade.  It’s fairly drought tolerant but will benefit from supplemental water in drought.

Purple passionflower is very vigorous and will need some sort of support.  You may also want to control some of its wayward vines (that can attach to trees and other plants) with a snip of the pruners.  Its roots also spread underground and it can be aggressive.