Target Weed. Passiflora mollissima, Banana Passionfruit, Don Reserve, Devonport, Tasmania, Australia
"Don Reserve showcases how remnant vegetation can coexist with suburban development and still maintain a healthy and diverse ecosystem” is the motto of the Devonport City Council Fire Management Plan – Don Reserve. The plan discusses the ways in which fire and burning can be used to maintain native plants and to control ‘exotics’ in the natural reserve on the westside of Devonport along the Don River emptying out into Bass Strait. One of the many exotics targeted in the plan is Banana Passionfruit, Passiflora mollissima.
This Passiflora was described early in the nineteenth century under the name Tacsonia mollissima, hailing from Bolivia and Venezuela. Later it became useful because its woody stalk is good for grafting onto it other kinds of Passionfruits. So soon it became popular the world ‘round; moreover, if you like pink this is your flower!. But in New Zealand and Australia (incl. Tasmania) and elsewhere, too, it’s escaped the confines of agriculture, horticulture and gardens. Free in ‘nature’, its vines readily smother native plants and forest regrowth after fires or floods.
Pottering along the Don River the other day, I saw a whole creep of this non-native plant now, it seems, much at home here and perhaps even ‘naturalised’.
PS I hope to get back to commenting etc. in a day or so. Please bear with me... Thanks.
Target Weed. Passiflora mollissima, Banana Passionfruit, Don Reserve, Devonport, Tasmania, Australia
"Don Reserve showcases how remnant vegetation can coexist with suburban development and still maintain a healthy and diverse ecosystem” is the motto of the Devonport City Council Fire Management Plan – Don Reserve. The plan discusses the ways in which fire and burning can be used to maintain native plants and to control ‘exotics’ in the natural reserve on the westside of Devonport along the Don River emptying out into Bass Strait. One of the many exotics targeted in the plan is Banana Passionfruit, Passiflora mollissima.
This Passiflora was described early in the nineteenth century under the name Tacsonia mollissima, hailing from Bolivia and Venezuela. Later it became useful because its woody stalk is good for grafting onto it other kinds of Passionfruits. So soon it became popular the world ‘round; moreover, if you like pink this is your flower!. But in New Zealand and Australia (incl. Tasmania) and elsewhere, too, it’s escaped the confines of agriculture, horticulture and gardens. Free in ‘nature’, its vines readily smother native plants and forest regrowth after fires or floods.
Pottering along the Don River the other day, I saw a whole creep of this non-native plant now, it seems, much at home here and perhaps even ‘naturalised’.
PS I hope to get back to commenting etc. in a day or so. Please bear with me... Thanks.