This woody climber is displaying flowers as it scrambles through the Diospyros lotus in the Woodland Garden.
The distinct yellow, saxophone-shaped flowers of this Dutchman’s pipe appear in the leaf axils of the twining stems in Spring. Reaching no more than 10cm in length the tri-lobed calyx has a brown-marked throat and an inflated tube, or corolla. Its main pollinators are flies which are attracted into the calyx by a potent scent, where they are dusted with pollen before re-emerging. The flowers are followed by cylindrical fruits up to 10cm in length, which dehisce when ripe releasing winged seeds. Aristolochia manshuriensis (Manshurian pipevine) is a native of Temperate Asia, where it grows in mixed forests to over 6m in height. Aristolochia is a cosmopolitan genus comprising approximately 550 species of herbaceous perennials and erect and climbing shrubs.