Before going to Belize, I made list of plants that I wanted to see growing in their natural environment. Passiflora cobanensis was one of the ones on that list.
Continued below…….
I have always adored the Xeragona types and I was really hoping to find one in the wild that I hadn’t seen in person before. I even mapped out areas in advance where I was pretty certain that we could find them.
Boy oh boy, is this Passiflora good at camouflaging itself in with other plant species! I had passed by Passiflora cobanensis many times before I realized what it was! It was so variable, being anywhere from a small perennial looking plant with single lobed leaves and no tendrils, to a huge massive vine that consumed surrounding trees with leaves that matched its own! It was everywhere! Once we were able to ID Passiflora cobanensis I became obsessed with finding flowers. Luck would have it that we did find a couple of plants with blooms! Yippee!!!! The flowers are under 2 inches, but what they lack in size they make up for in color! The green, red and yellow are a beautiful combination! I was so incredibly happy to find it in the wild and even happier to see it in bloom! Passiflora cobanensis is a wonderful species with lots of character! I’m glad that we had a chance to enjoy it!