PASSION FLOWERS ON MY NEIGHBOR'S FENCE

There is a house behind my house. Not directly behind, actually. First, after my garden's wall, there is a house - like building with quite a few apartments. Some are empty, some were bought by different families during the last couple of years. And then, there is this older house, built during the seventies, just like the one in which I live. Once I knew the people in it. A Croatian dude, my father's generation, I think. His German wife, maybe younger. I mean, she definitively looked younger. And their son. My good friend, about 6 - 8 years younger than me, that died from leukemia a decade or so ago, in Germany. I spent plenty of happy time in that house, playing with fantastic toys brought from Germany - the capitalist wonderland, stuff that we in Yugoslavia didn't have in stores. But that's another story. This one is about the plant that has covered the fence around the house ...

... the Passiflora caerulea, commonly known as the common passion flower.

Some people from Russia have bought the house three or four years ago. They come for a few weeks in summer, and for the rest of the year the house is empty. The photographs in this post were taken on 27th May 2021. Long tendrils were sprouting from the fence. They looked a bit like tentacles ready to grab whoever is passing by.

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Passiflora is a woody vine capable of growing up to 25 meters high where supporting trees are available. Here, the plant grows horizontally, along the wooden fence.

The beautiful, complex flowers are the plant's main attraction during the springtime.

They are pretty big and easy to notice from a distance ...

... but when I came closer and took a better look ...

... I learned that tendrils are elegant and photogenic as well.

I photographed many of these spirals, because each one looked different enough. I already showed you about a half of them, the other half will appear in the post later, near the end. Because now ...

... is time to take a look at some animals.

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I found some larvae on the foliage. By the shape, it looks like a larval stage of some lady beetle ...

... but I don't know. Never saw the adult insect. And that was the first and only time that I saw those small larvae.

While the larvae are pretty small, the creature on this double shot, is really minuscule. This is a springtail. The Sminthurus viridis springtail.

At one point, while photographing the flowers ...

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... when I came closer ...

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... I saw some ants running around the fantastic, alien - looking structure.

Only a couple of flowers were opened and completely developed on that day in May. On this photograph, you can see plenty of buds almost ready to open.

Here you can see another lovely tendril, and on the following photograph you can take a look ...

... at another tendril. A pretty stretched, vertical one.

I noticed many interesting tendrils on that occasion. They looked like some designer jewelry.

The tendrils were grabbing various stuff around the plant. This one has caught the ear of grass covered with tiny flowers.

Call me slightly paranoid, but I was almost convinced that if I stay still too long, the plant will grab me as well.

Where the wooden, Passiflora covered fence was ending, a wall was continuing around the house. There I photographed this pretty robust wolf spider.

The spider crawled down to the ground, climbed on the leaf of grass ... and ended this post.

As always here on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.