This is a close look at the beautiful Passiflora gilbertiana, discovered fairly recently in Costa Rica.  From spring through autumn, it's covered with wonderful, golden-yellow blossoms that look like little sunshine rays!  Even without blooms it's an stunning plant, with terrific, variegated leaves that have purplish undersides.  This vine is rarely seen in cultivation, and seldom offered for sale.

Its large, wing-shaped leaves grow to about 6 inches long and have attractive "lightning bolt" variegation down each lobe, similar to my Passiflora boenderi, also from Costa Rica.  If you look closely you'll see rows of yellow dots that serve to mimic butterfly eggs, to keep butterflies from laying eggs there.  The inch-wide blooms appear in large numbers all over the vine.  Sometimes the blooms have no fragrance, but usually they have sort of a chemical smell that most find unpleasant.  It doesn't seem to bother hummingbirds, which often visit the blooms.  You can cross-breed it with some other Passiflora species, particularly those in the subgenus Decaloba.  After flowering, it can make small, round fruit that is purple.  I don't know if the fruit is edible - some species make toxic fruit.

It comes from a mild climate, without extremes in temperature.  It reportedly tolerates heat, but it's happiest if nights aren't warm too.  I don't know its frost tolerance, but it's probably best to protect it from freezing.  It enjoys partly sunny conditions.  The variegation gets strongest in bright light, but the plant might need some shading from strong sun in warmer climates.  Like most Passifloras, it likes fertile, well-draining soil that's kept evenly moist.  It can be grown in a 3-5 gallon pot onto a trellis.  It's vigorous, but it doesn't get rampant.  In the right conditions, it's an easy vine.

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