WTF?

This stopped me in my tracks on the way down the front path this morning. It was one of those "What's That Flower?" moments. Holy flaming Flamenco dancers -- it looked almost dangerous in the early sunshine, dangling from the stair rail on a thread-stem, flapping about in the wind. And it wasn't there yesterday. I keep a very close eye on my garden, and I know when something this spectacular is going to happen. So my first thought was that someone had put it there. You know, as a surprise or a joke.

But no. This is the passiflora on the front bank. The one I've been admiring for its clever tendrill knotting patterns.

Handrail detailing anyone?

In the grip of passion

This is the passionfruit I thought would never flower, out there on a steep clay bank, catching the Southerly blast, fighting for space and soil with ivy, jasmine, clematis... It's Passiflora Antioquiensis, red banana for short. It looks quite like the noxious banana passionfruit, Passiflora mollissima, which has smaller, light pink flowers, and is famous for smothering native bush and anything else that gets in its way. I study that one in the wild in the green belt, Mt Victoria. The council hacks and poisons. The banana passionfruit grows back. Over and over again. Anyway, back to my front yard.

The five petals on the outside seem to have leaves grafted into them, only visible from the back - or the top in this case. The stem looks to be made from exactly the same matter as the tendrils, only it's straight, 28 cm (almost a foot) long, with a flower hanging off the end -- so the flower hangs upside down... which got me thinking.

About pollination.  

The Echinacea flowers out the back are doing the exact opposite to the passionfruit out the front; they're thrusting their pollen laden centres up to the sky, luring in the bees and butterflies that ensure a healthy sex life and successful reproduction. That's what plants do -- whatever is necessary to produce a next generation.

So why is the red banana passionfruit hanging upside down, modest, hiding its reproductive organs -- effectively giving the bees and butterflies the cold shoulder?

I had to turn the flower over to take this photo. I'm pretty sure it blushed.

As I tipped it over, I noticed some drops of clear liquid dripping back into the white center. It was super sticky and very sweet. (Yes, I tasted it; perhaps that was stupid, but I'm alive to tell the story). And I thought idly "wouldn't it be cool if we had humming birds in New Zealand... they would flock to this flower." And there, I think, is the answer to the pollination question.

Perhaps in their native habitat, these flowers aren't pollinated by bees at all. A passing hummingbird, dropping in for a spot of nectar, which just happens to be hanging there in big oozy drops, would do an amazing job of spreading the pollen with its whirring wings. If the flower faced upward, they wouldn't suit the hummingbird anywhere near as well. Hummingbirds feed on the fly, hovering as they sip, and hanging flowers accommodate that habit perfectly.  They drip nectar where the humming bird's beak can reach it, keep their petals out of they way of those crazy whirring wings, and conveniently dangle their reproductive organs where they'll get the most pollination action. Genius.

Sure enough, these plants are native to the cool rainforests of Columbia. Maybe they don't even have bees there. But they do have hummingbirds, and butterflies with long curling tongues used for slurping up nectar. Mystery solved.

It's amazing what can happen to the innocent gardener as she trots down the front path first thing in the morning. Sometimes she ends up on a trip to the Columbian rainforest.

Meanwhile, up the top of the back garden, the waxeyes and tuis are plundering the figs as they ripen. The native birds don't seem to care where the trees are from. If the fruit's ripe, they'll eat it.