Natives For Your Neighborhood
Conservation of rare plants, animals, and ecosystems

General Landscape Uses: Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations. Also butterfly gardens.

Availability: Grown by one or two native plant nurseries in South Florida.

Description: Vine or clambering shrub.

Dimensions: Sprawling or clambering to 3-10 feet. Usually spreading and broader than tall and can form dense patches.

Growth Rate: Moderate.

Range: Monroe County Keys north along the coasts to Brevard and Lee counties; apparently disjunct in Hillsborough County; West Indies, Mexico, Central America and South America.

 Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.

 Map of Postal Code Areas of IRC data from peninsular Florida.

Habitats: Hammocks and pinelands.

Soils: Moist, well-drained sandy or limestone soils, with or without humusy top layer.

Nutritional Requirements: Moderate to low; it prefers soils with organic content, but will still grow reasonably well in nutrient poor soils.

Salt Water Tolerance: Low; does not tolerate long-term flooding by salt or brackish water.

Salt Wind Tolerance: High; can tolerate moderate amounts of salt wind without significant injury.

Drought Tolerance: Moderate to high; plants growing in extremely dry soils may die during extended periods of drought.

Light Requirements: Full sun to light shade or moderate shade.

Flower Color: White.

Flower Characteristics: Semi-showy.

Flowering Season: All year.

Fruit: Succulent yellow berrylike syncarp.

Wildlife and Ecology: Nectar source for Bahamian swallowtail (Papiolo andraemon), cassius blue (Leptotes cassius), Florida duskywing (Ephyriades brunneus), Florida white (Appias drusilla), giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes), great southern white (Ascia monuste phileta), gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), hammock skipper (Polygonus leo), julia (Dryas iulia), large orange sulphur (Phoebis agarithe), mangrove skipper (Phocides pigmalion), southern broken-dash (Wallengrenia otho), Schaus' swallowtail (Papilio aristodemus), tropical checkered-skipper (Pyrgus oileus), zestos skipper (Epargyreus zestos) and other butterflies.

Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed.