The Coolest Plant Ever

We have this plant growing in our backyard.  It is a passion fruit plant, and it has provided us with lots of entertainment.  It gets huge white and purple flowers that enormous black bees love.  Humming birds also love them.  The butterflies also love this plant, and they lay their eggs on its leaves.  Several times we have been able to watch the butterflies lay their eggs.  Then they hatch and turn into a big batch of tiny caterpillars, which looks kind of gross.  The caterpillars grow up in a few days.

Here is a picture of some of the caterpillars.  They were all over for a few weeks.  Ethan loved them.  One morning he came in the house with 10 of them crawling all over his clothes.  He stuck them all over the walls and then collected them in a jar with some leaves.

The caterpillars crawled all around the jar and then in about two days they all formed cocoons on the jar.  We were very surprised with the cocoons, and  we thought that maybe some would survive and we could see some butterflies come our of their cocoons.  Well, after about three weeks, we saw almost all of them come out of their cocoons and start to fly.  It has been so cool.

This is a butterfly that just came out of its cocoon and its wings are still all crumpled up.  After they come out, they have to sit around for a while fluttering their wings until they are straight and dry.  One time Isaac blew on one that was drying its wings and it took off flying.  It was amazing to see its first flight.  That worked a few more times.

The other thing about the plant is that it makes really yummy fruit.  I had never tried passionfruit until we moved here.  It has a light soft shell that you cut open and the inside has a sour juice and pulp.  We like to eat them cut in half with some sugar sprinkled on.  The portuguese name is Maracujá.  You can also make a really yummy dessert with lots of sweetened condensed milk and whipping cream.  This picture was taken of Owen back in March enjoying some passionfruit for breakfast.

We love our amazing plant that is a living science experiment and yummy dessert maker all in one!