Wildflower series ~ African Heart Vine
Pentarrhinum insipidum belongs to the family Apocynaceae. When it's not in flower, it looks similar to the invasive Moth Catcher, a vine that comes from South America. Heart Vine is indigenous to Africa and it is found twining in among grasses but it can also grow aggressively in disturbed soil.
I took the picture above of the same vine in November, before the summer rains had started so it looks a little different. The fruit, stems and leaves are all edible and when it seeds, I am going to plant this in my vegetable garden, since the traditional vegetables are all badly affected by root knot nematodes, aka eelworm. I have noticed that many native plants are not affected and I hope that this is one of them.
Great flowers i have seen first time and you have given nice information.
Thank you
Wow! You are very observant!! You know which plants are suitable for the situation!
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Knowledge is power
My friend was in Africa. He told me that in many places there was a reddish-brown earth.
I look at your photos the land is not black.
Many places do have red soil beause the underlying geology is a very red shale. This part has an underlying geolgy of quartzite and a light brown shale so the soil is not red and it is a very poor soil for growing plants that are not adapted to the conditions
Thank you very much for the explanation.
We plant marigolds to keep nematodes away, if they are the same nematodes.
I have heard of that although I am unsure as to what kind they are. If I keep improving the soil with compost it should eventually get better
The variety of marigold doesn't matter.
Sorry, I meant the type of nematode. There are quite a few different kinds out there and marigold doesn't work against all of them :(
haha - Yeah, I was wondering that too.
Fun to experiment with growing native plants.
For sure!
Vaya amiga, es todo un reto el que tiene allí a su alcance. Ha encontrado muchos tesoros todos estos días. Frutos, flores, raíces. Que emocionante.
Good post!
Our land is also reddish-brown.