Same Plant, Two Colors
Posted: November 5, 2022 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: Antigonon leptopus, Automatic Gardening, Coral Vine, Gulf Coast gardening, Mexican Creeper, Year-round gardening 15 Comments
The pink Coral Vine (Antigonon leptopus) has been growing in my yard for years and spent it’s its time at the top of the Weeping Bottle Brush that was killed by the 2021 freeze. This year it is rambling all over the place. The vine is also called Mexican Creeper and is a magnet for bees and hummingbirds.
I am sure it has reseeded over the years, but this year two plants that germinated no more than six feet away had white blooms. It was quite a surprise, but the flowers are very pretty and didn’t make any difference to the pollinators.
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Cool, I have never seen a white one..
I really haven’t either.
I have had a pink one for years.. never more than 4 inches tall while the one growing by a telephone pole down the street is beautiful! And huge.
Wow–so cool! I’ve seen the white form of the vine, but I’ve never had the two-fer. Mine are just about done blooming as the sun’s angle has changed a bit and it is cooler, at least on some days. Nice catch!
It seems strange.
Well, I have other plants, particularly the Tropical Sage (Salvia coccinea) that I purchased (or was gifted) in in red, but it most often re-seeds in white–which has become my favorite form of this plant. I’m no botanist, but I’m aware of other plants that do this, I just don’t have an understanding as to why. Still it’s nice that you have both forms. I hope your white one really takes off!
I will let the white reseed and see what happens.
IMHO the white blossoms are prettier because you can see the yellow stamens better. Thanks for sharing.
I thought they were very pretty too.
Perennial pea sometimes does that with the same sort of ‘original’ color and white. Insects see infrared and ultraviolet color, so may see more in white than we can.
The bees must have cross pollinated yours for you!
Beautiful!😍
Intriguing that the seedlings were a different colour. Maybe a pollinator visited one in a nearby garden and then yours…. They are both really pretty. 😃
Over the years, I kept finding white variants among the wildflowers, and finally did a little research. It seems that pink and blue/lavender flowers most often produce white sports — just as this one did. Pretty!
I’m sure this plant had been reseeding for years and now suddenly made some changes.