Fringed twinevine or climbing milkweed (Funastrum cynanchoides or also Sarcostemma cynanchoides) is one of my new favorite wildflowers. On April 3rd, while hiking in a wash near Carey's Castle in the Eagle Mountains in the southern portion of Joshua Tree National Park, I came across a bizarre plant that I could not (and still cannot) identify.
I had this post prepared with pictures of that plant. It had flowers that are amazingly like the fringed twinevine.
But the rest of the plant did not fit. Then I took a second hike into the same area two weeks later, on April 17th. While on that hike I came across about four of the actual fringed twinevines.
With all of the reading I'd done on it, I instantly recognized it
and was shocked at how much smaller and how much different this plant is than the one I had been identifying it as. The fringed twinevine is found along washes.
It has flowers in umbrella-like clusters
with five sepals and five petals fringed with white hairs.
The leaves are green, hairless and variable in shape.
The stems are slender, green and twining.
With a casual glance, there is nothing remarkable about the plant.
But a detailed view opens up an amazingly beautiful world of twisting vines,
spectacularly arranged
and colored flowers.
I still have the mystery of the other plant to solve, but it has cemented a real interest and curiousity in me for this plant.
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