CLOCK VINE
ON A CHAIN-LINK FENCE
 Right outside the window
of the tiny guardhouse in which I live there's a chain-link fence with ornamental vines
twining up through it. Nowadays the star of the fence is the Bengal Clock Vine, also
called Sky Flower, THUNBERGIA GRANDIFLORA. You can see the vine's three-inch broad,
sky-blue flowers and its opposite leaves at the right.
Thunbergias are members of the mostly tropical Acanthus Family, and in the photo you
can see one thing that makes a Thunbergia a Thunbergia: The four, upward arching stamens
in the flowers' throats. Not seen are the two large bracts subtending the corollas,
looking like huge, two-pointed calices. The actual calyx is a hardly noticeable rim at the
corolla's base.
Several Thunbergias are widely planted in the tropics. They're mostly African and Asian
in origin. Our Bengal Clock Vine is from Indian Bengal. The flowers wilt quickly when cut,
but the two pictured above blossomed on the fence for over a week. |