Anybody??? Anything???

Neat! I haven't tried either of these, so this update is fun. Keep us posted! I've done tons of A. fimbriata in the past and found it to be a very eager grower and a very generous bloomer (and it's not a climber so no trellis required). This year I've also got a single plant of the native "mouse ear" pipevine A. watsonii which is still small but making good, slow progress. Keep us posted on yours. If they make it long-term I may need to give them a try too. Take care, Grant

Dear Mechelle - I live in the Tidewater area of Eastern Virginia out near Williamsburg, and am desperately trying to farm Aritolochias to raise PVS cats also, as are many other people. If you have any fimbriata seeds still available at this late date, I would love to have a few and give them a try. I'm afraid I don't know much about raising the very small serpentaria roots that I recently purchased. But they are potted up and show signs of growth, even in now in August. The seller said that they wouldn't grow until next Spring, which kinda surprised me! So I've been online reading on the Forum here and I've learned that having "back-up" forage plants is a must when one has a female PVS visitor, which I plan for next Spring. Can you help? Do you have suggestions for keeping serpentaria "vines" alive until next Spring in zone 7? I could even send you an SASE to make it easy (if you have any fimbriata seeds still available)! Thanks!

Hi Sherry and Sandy, Thanks for your comments. I hesitated somewhat posting on this forum as I had read that A. gigantea (and I believe A. elegans) are toxic to some butterfly larvae. However, I assumed that there would be people with considerable experience growing Aristolochias on this forum. The nature of the toxicity is not clear to me, nor is it clear whether a hybrid would share that problem. Is it even known whether the "toxicity" is due to a poisonous substance or substances, or whether the plants are "poisonous" simply because they lack some molecule(s) necessary for the caterpillars' survival? Regardless, I assumed that on a forum like this there would be a number of people who started growing Aristolochias for the butterflies, but then fell in love with the genus for the plants themselves. I know that is true of many who grow Passifloras. I'm not familiar with the debates over the naming of A. durior and A. macrophylla. For some reason I had thought they were synonyms. I have a friend who used to be involved in vine propagation at UCBG and I'm hoping to get his thoughts as to whether the parent could have been A. gigantea. I'm sure there are cases where the flowers of a hybrid are larger than either parent, but (particularly in the absence of polyploidy) I would expect they are rare. An 8 inch flower (assuming the description is correct) is a pretty dramatic increase in size. The white flecks on the leaves are also highly suspicious. Again, my impression is that those are diagnostic of A. gigantea, and never found in A. durior/macrophylla or A. elegans. The white "flecks" are odd enough that many people think their A. gigantea is diseased the first time they notice them. My interest is in the ornamental aspect of the plant, as well as its adaptability. I've grown other Aristolochias--A. gigantea, trilobata/macroura, elegans, and fimbriata. I've offered both unrooted and rooted cuttings of A. gigantea for postage in the past, and at the moment I have rooted cuttings of A. trilobata/macroura that I will need to find homes for. What intrigues me about this particular hybrid is the possibility that it could resemble one of the tropical species in terms of large and dramatic flowers, yet have unusual hardiness. The hardiness is not an issue for me, but it would be for people living in most of the rest of the country. I would guess that there would be people interested in growing such a hybrid outside if it were possible in their climate. Passiflora incarnata is an example of a plant whose hybrids differ in their hardiness. Passiflora 'Incense' (P. incarnata x cincinnata) is one that is reasonably hardy for many people (typically given as zone 7, I think, sometimes even zone 6). Others are much less hardy. In that case the origin of the P. incarnata parent may be one factor, as strains from more Northern regions are not nearly as hardy as those from the Deep South. The bottom line is that for either P. incarnata hybrids or for Aristolochia durior x elegans, the hardiness of the hybrid can't be easily predicted. It needs to be tested. But yes, for those whose sole focus is attracting butterflies, the issue of toxicity is probably more important than hardiness. By the way, I think the Yahoo Aristolochia group has essentially died, with almost no posts in the last year or two.