The Succulent Passionflowers

Photo by Wendy Cutler licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0

Succulent passionflowers?! It took me a minute to get my head wrapped around the idea. It wasn’t until I saw one in flower that I truly understood. The genus Adenia is found throughout east and west Africa, Southeast Asia, and hits its peak diversity in Madagascar. It comprises approximately 100 species and, as a whole, is poorly understood. Today I would like to introduce you to this bizarre genus within Passifloraceae.

Adenia glauca Photo by Karelj licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Adenia is, to date, the second largest genus within the Passionflower family and yet delineating species has been something of a nightmare for botanists over the years. At least some of this confusion lies within the diversity of this odd group. It has been said that few angiosperm lineages surpass Adenia in the diversity of growth forms they exhibit. Though all could be considered succulent to some degree, Adenia runs the gamut from trees to vines, and even tuberous herbs.

Even within individual species, the overall form of these plants can vary widely depending on the conditions under which they have been growing. Their succulent nature and that fact that many species can reach rather large proportions means that herbarium records for this group are scant at best. Many are only known from a single, incomplete collection of a few bits and pieces of plant. Also, juvenile plants often look very different from their adult forms, making timing of the collection crucial for proper analysis.

To complicate matters more, all Adenia are dioecious, meaning that individual plants are either male or female. Male and female flowers of individual species look pretty distinct and differ a bit from what we have come to expect out of the passionflower family. Often collections were made on only a single sex. This is further complicated by the fact that these plants often exhibit very short flowering seasons. Most come into bloom right before the onset of the rainy season and are entirely leafless at that point in time. Because of this, it has been extremely difficult to accurately match flowering collections to vegetative collections. As such, nearly 1/4 of all Adenia species are missing descriptions of either male or female flowers and their fruits.

Female flower of Adenia reticulata. Photo by C. E. Timothy Paine licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Male flowers of Adenia digitata. Photo by Joachim Beyenbach licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Flowers of Adenia firingalavensis. Photo by voyage-madagascar.org licensed under CC BY 2.0

Fruits of Adenia hondala

Even genetic work has failed to clear up much of the mysteries that surround this group. Some studies suggest that Adenia is sister to all other genera within Passifloraceae whereas others have even suggested it to be nestled neatly within the genus Passiflora. The most recent work hints at a placement among the tribe Passifloreae. If this confuses you, you are certainly not alone. Until a more complete sampling effort is done on Adenia, I think it is safe to say that this genus will be holding onto its taxonomic mysteries for the foreseeable future.

Adenia globosa photo by KENPEI licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License

All Adenia are perennial plants but how they manage this differs from species to species. Some put all of their energy into underground tubers, producing annual stems and leaves that die back each year. Others don’t produce any tubers and instead store all of their water and nutrients within thick stems. This has made at least a handful of species a hit with succulent growers around the world. It is always an interesting sight to see a giant caudiciform trunk or base with bunches of spindly stems spraying out from the top.

Leaves and fruit of Adenia cissampeloides. Photo by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Juvenile Adenia glauca. Photo by laurent houmeau licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Adenia are also extremely toxic plants. The conditions under which these plants evolved are tough and it appears that this group doesn’t want to take any chances on losing any biomass to herbivores. The main class of compounds they produce are called lectins. These proteins cause myriad issues within animal bodies including rapid cell death, blood clotting, inhibition of protein synthesis, and a disruption of ribosome and DNA function. Needless to say, its in any critters best interest to avoid nibbling on any species of Adenia. Even handling and pruning of these plants merits caution.

Photo by Wendy Cutler licensed under CC BY 2.0

Whether you’re a botanist, taxonomist, gardener, or just curious about plant diversity, Adenia is a wonderful example of just how many unknowns are still out there. Regardless of their taxonomic status, these are fascinating species, each with a wonderful ecology and intriguing evolutionary history. These plants are hardy survivors and a great example of the lengths a genus can go to when presented with new opportunities. Undoubtedly many more species await description but the plants we currently know of are fascinating to say the least.

Adenia pechuelii. Photo by Ewald Schmidt licensed under public domain.

Photo Credits: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Further Reading: [1] [2]

A Passionflower With a Taste for Insects?

Photo by B.navez licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

For a plant to be considered carnivorous, it must possess one or more traits unequivocally adapted for attracting, capturing, and/or digesting prey. It also helps to demonstrate that the absorption of nutrients has a clear positive impact on growth or reproductive effort. For plants like the Venus fly trap or any of the various pitcher plants out there, this distinction is pretty straight forward. For many other species, the line between carnivorous or not can be a little blurry. Take, for instance, the case of the stinking passionflower (Passiflora foetida).

At first glance, P. foetida seems par for the course as far as passionflowers are concerned. It is a vining species native from the southwestern United States all the way down into South America. It enjoys edge habitats where it can scramble up and over neighboring vegetation. It produces large, showy flowers followed by edible fruits. When the foliage is damaged, it emits a strong odor, earning it the specific epithet “foetida.”

Not until you inspect the developing floral buds of this passionflower will the question of carnivory enter into your mind. Covering the developing flowers and eventually the fruit are a series of feathery bracts, which are covered in glandular hairs. The hairs themselves are quite sticky thanks to the secretion of fluids. As insects crawl across the hairs, they become hopelessly entangled and eventually die. So, does this make P. foetida a carnivore?

Photo by B.navez licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Many different plants produce sticky hairs or glands on their tissues. Often this is a form of defense. Herbivorous insects looking to take a bite out of such a plant either get stuck outright or have their mouth parts completely gummed up in the process. This form of defense seems to work quite well for such plant species so simply trapping insects doesn’t mean the plant is a carnivore. Worth noting, however, is the fact that it appears that many carnivorous plant traits have simply been retooled from defense traits.

The question remains as to what happens to the trapped insects after they are ensnared by P. foetida. Observations in the field suggest that there is more to these sticky hairs than simply defense. This led a team of researchers to look closer at the interactions between P. foetida and insects. What they found is rather fascinating.

It turns out that most of the insects captured by P. foetida bracts are herbivores that would have made an easy meal of the flowers and fruits. However, after getting stuck, the insect bodies quickly decay. Laboratory analyses revealed that indeed, the fluids secreted by the sticky hairs contained lots of digestive enzymes, mainly proteases and acid phosphatases. Still, this does not mean the plant is eating the insects. It makes sense from a defensive standpoint that a plant would not benefit from having lots of rotting corpses stuck to its buds. As such, digesting them removes the possibility of fungal or bacterial attack. To investigate whether P. foetida benefits from trapping insects beyond simply avoiding herbivory, the team needed to know if any nutritional benefit was being had.

Photo by Vvenka1 licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

The team took amino acids marked with a special carbon isotope and smeared it onto the bracts. Then they waited to see if any of the labelled amino acids showed up in the plant tissues. Indeed they did. The amino acids were absorbed by the bracts and translocated to the  calyx, corolla, anthers, and finally to the developing ovules. This is probably not too surprising  to those of us that spend time growing plants as numerous plant species can uptake at least some nutrients through their leaves. This is why foliar feeding can work as a means of fertilizing potted plants. Nonetheless, these results are enticing as it shows that P. foetida is not only capturing and dissolving insects, it also seems capable of absorbing at least some amino acids from its victims.

So, should we call P. foetida a carnivore? To be honest, I am not sure. Certainly all of the evidence suggests there is more going on than simply defense. However, does garnering the attention of hungry herbivores constitute prey attraction? Certainly other carnivores utilize food deception as a means of prey capture. Does simply being a palatable plant count as a lure? Does absorbing nutrients constitute carnivory? In some instances, yes, however, as mentioned, plenty of plant species can absorb nutrients from organs other than their roots.

I think the main question is whether P. foetida sees a marked increase in growth or reproduction due to the addition of the dead herbivores. What I think we can say is that the sticky bracts surrounding the flowers and fruits serve a dual purpose - defense against herbivores and potentially a nutrient boost as well. If anything, I think this should qualify as a form of protocarnivory.

Photo Credits: [1] [2] [3]

Further Reading: [1] [2]