Rewilding My Lot

I have a Scarletfruit Passionflower (Passiflora lanuginosa), which is a South American variety. Despite it being not technically native to Central Texas, it is welcome in my garden because of its function as a host plant to Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) butterflies, among others.

This is my plant’s second year here. After freezing back to the ground over the winter, it has grown back more strongly than last year. There has been a great deal of butterfly and caterpillar activity, so the passionflower is definitely serving its purpose as a host plant. It is perfectly acceptable for leaves to be eaten.

The constantly moving Gulf Fritillary butterflies are hard to capture in photographs, but here’s a brief video of one, probably laying eggs:

There are caterpillars of all sizes on the plant. Younger instars are orange with black bristles.

Older instars look so different that when I first saw them I thought they were a different species altogether.

Caterpillars are voracious eaters and their waste, called frass, can  can act as a nitrogen-rich fertilizer in soil once it gets washed or blown to the ground.

And speaking of eating, the first thing a newly emerged caterpillar instar will do is turn around and eat its old skin — nothing is wasted! I happened to catch an incident of this happening.

This beautiful plant is very close to the back patio, so at this time of year it is a constant source of entertaining activity.