Climbing on another climber

Click for greater clarity.

On June 19th I found this scene at a corner of Great Hills Park in my Austin neighborhood. Prominent in the foreground are three flowers of a perennial vine called purple bindweed, Ipomoea cordatotriloba. The ‘three lobes’ mentioned in the latter part of the species name refer to the plant’s leaves, some of which you can see in an arc across the upper two-thirds of the photograph. The curved light-green stem that the leaves follow is from a different climbing vine, Clematis drummondii, whose pale flowers far outnumber the bindweed’s more colorful ones. In the upper left you can see the darker stem of the bindweed twining around that of the Clematis.

To find out the places in the southeastern United States where purple bindweed grows, you can consult the state-clickable map at the USDA website. Clematis drummondii grows primarily in Texas. Both of these species were unfazed during last year’s drought and both are doing well again this year, as they always seem to.

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Posted on this date a year ago: a closeup of an opening camphorweed bud that reminded me of a torch.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman