Passionvine

Passiflora incarnata

Passionvine has the most otherworldly flower of any native vine. lavender-purple petals with a corona of radiating filaments that looks like it came from a different continent. It blooms heavily from July through September, and the blooms attract bumblebees, native bees, and the large, spectacular gulf fritillary butterfly, for which this vine is the exclusive larval host east of the Rockies. The edible yellow-green fruits ripen in late summer and early fall, sweet-tart and fragrant. It spreads by runners and can colonize a fence line or steep slope quickly. which makes it excellent for erosion control, and something to manage if you want contained growth. In the right spot, there is nothing in the native vine palette that combines wildlife value, edible fruit, and sheer floral spectacle the way passionvine does.