Tuesday, October 7, 2014

THE NATIVE SNAPDRAGON VINE

Today I am highlighting a lesser know Texas native snapdragon vine, Maurandya antirrhiniflora. It belongs to the Scrophulariaceae family, like the common garden snapdragon. You might have guessed that from the species name being similar to antirrhinum, commonly used for snapdragons.  Last year I tried to grow snapdragon vine on the trellis outside my kitchen patio. After a great start it failed miserably, but it did leave behind seeds which have germinated in several places in the garden.


It seems the vine would like to grow the way it wants to, which is by sprawling across the ground and entwining its petioles around anything in its path. Here it is prettying up the oregano. It is a delicate vine and once it has coiled its petioles around a stem there is no letting go.


A second plant I am now training onto an arched bamboo trellis, although it doesn't help to twist its stem around because that is not its method of climbing.


As I mentioned earlier it is the petiole stem that does the twisting and support as opposed to the stem itself. As a temporary hold I taped the stem to the bamboo using velcro garden tape. In the wild the flowers can be found in all shades of purple to an infrequent white.
The first time I saw this plant growing was in the garden of Pam Penick. It was twining its way up some fine wire twisted around the pole of her dovecote. This dovecote now resides in my garden but I have not been successful in getting the vine to twine up the existing wire. Maybe next year I will have success.
I shall be saving seeds this year in an attempt to ensure it grows in a more suitable place next year but undoubtedly it will show up in lots of other places too.

8 comments:

  1. I like this pretty vine which also grows wild in my neighborhood. In my garden I've let it turn into a mound because I don't want to disturb it by trying to twine it. Maybe I'll try that next year. Mine has survived a couple of cold winters so it seems to act like a perennial.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love snapdragon vine! It also nurtures butterflies. I failed with mine, too, but I'm looking for a good spot to grow it in the future. Lovely pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That vine is so lovely. The first time I saw it out in the hills around Lake Buchanan I was totally smitten but alas could not find any seeds and was not about to risk killing the plant by trying to dig it out. It sounds pretty tricky to "train", but my money is on you (and/or Shirley and/or Linda) to figure out how to get this beauty growing more with the program.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had both the purple and the white snapdragon vine but failed with both. I was told to plant them in a mostly shady spot and I think just a little morning sun perhaps was not enough. Yours are doing so well. Are they protected from afternoon sun?

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a beautiful plant, even if it is a bit disobedient.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a pretty plant. Love that purple bloom.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That birdhouse climber was the only time I've grown snapdragon vine successfully. It was in full sun, which it obviously loved. My current garden has no areas of full sun, and my attempts at growing it have been correspondingly unsuccessful. I miss it, but I am glad to see you making a go of it.

    ReplyDelete

I love your comments unless they are spam comments which will always be removed in comment moderation.