Aristolochia californica
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| Aristolochia californica | ||||||||||||||
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| Aristolochia californica Torr |
One of the most distinctive of California's endemic plants is Aristolochia californica, the California pipevine or California Dutchman's-pipe. It is a deciduous vine with purple-striped curving pipe-shaped flowers which give rise to winged capsular green fruits. After it blooms, the plant sends out new green heart-shaped leaves. The vines grow from rhizomes to a length of over twenty feet and can become quite thick in circumference at maturity. This plant is common in moist woods and along streams in northern and central California.
The flowers have an unpleasant odor which is attractive to tiny carrion-feeding insects. The insects crawl into the convoluted flowers and often become stuck and disoriented for some time, picking up pollen as they wander. Most eventually escape; the plant is not insectivorous as was once thought.
The larva of the pipevine swallowtail butterfly (Battus philenor) relies on California pipevine as its only food source. The red-spotted black caterpillars consume the leaves of the plants and then use the flowers as a secure, enclosed place to undergo metamorphosis. The plant contains a toxin which when ingested by the caterpillars makes them unpalatable to predators.
