The fringed twinevine "twines" through other plants in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. "Twining" means to twist together or interweave with another. In effect, it grows over and through other shrubs.
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| The plant without buds or flowers. |
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| Arrowshaped leaves on the vines. |
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| Buds, looking like a fireworks display just bursting. |
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| Buds beginning to flower (lower left) and flowers (upper right). |
Its leaves are narrow and arrow-shaped and its flowers, with five petals and five sepals, grow on umbrella-like heads and are whitish, pinkish or purplish with purple streaking.
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| The flowers and their twisting vines are fantastic. |
This is one of my favorite desert flowers. I've posted on it previously (here), but this post includes photos of the un-flowered plant and of the buds before the flowers, neither of which my prior post had.
That something so delicate as those flowers could grow on the end of the aggressively twisting and intertwining strands of the stems is surprising. The green vine looks like it could strangle you, but the flowers look like something you would put on a vase on your dining room table.
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