Aristolochia cinnabaria Seeds | Cinnabar Pipevine

Cinnabar Pipevine (Aristolochia cinnabaria) with its strange pipe-shaped flowers along a twining vine — Cinnabar Pipevine (*Aristolochia cinnabaria*): Aristolochiaceae, a Chinese twining vine of the birthwort family.

LATIN NAME: Aristolochia cinnabaria

COMMON NAME: Cinnabar Pipevine

Plant Profile

Cinnabar Pipevine is a twining climber of the birthwort family from China, producing slender stems that climb through shrubs and over trellises with broad, kidney- to heart-shaped leaves. In early summer the leaf axils carry the family’s strange flowers: curved, pipe-shaped blooms in dull cinnabar and purple tones, engineered to trap and release the small flies that pollinate them.

It grows in warm, sheltered woodland and needs a mild garden or a conservatory, where it covers a trellis in a few seasons. As a curiosity and a butterfly host plant it earns its place; as a medicinal herb it belongs to the past. Old stems turn grey and woody at the base while the season’s shoots stay green and pliable, so a mature plant shows both textures along the same trellis.

Science & Biotechnology

The family is a landmark of pharmaceutical regulation: aristolochic acid, present throughout the genus, is a proven kidney toxin and carcinogen, linked to Balkan nephropathy and to a series of poisonings from herbal products, and agencies worldwide have banned aristolochia-containing medicines.

The flowers’ pollination mechanism, trapping flies overnight in a chamber lined with stiff hairs and releasing them dusted with pollen, has featured in studies of brood-site deception pollination, and the vine serves as a larval host for pipevine swallowtail butterflies. Botanists have documented its flower-by-flower trapping sequence in detail, and the vine’s dependence on its specific pollinators has made it a case study in plant-insect coevolution.

Uses & Benefits

Its garden value is botanical theatre and wildlife: strange flowers in early summer, and in its native range a food plant for swallowtail caterpillars. Keep it well away from any food or medicinal use, and ensure children and pets do not ingest any part of the plant.

Grown as a botanical curiosity only, it repays observation: the trap flowers open one by one along the vine, each performing the same ancient deception over a day or two. In Chinese gardens of the mild south it is occasionally grown on old walls for the strange flowers, and butterfly enthusiasts elsewhere grow related species purely for the swallowtail caterpillars.

Growing from Seed

Sow fresh seed into a loose, well-drained mix and keep it warm, moist and in bright filtered light; germination takes several weeks and is improved by a warm soak beforehand.

Give the young vines a sturdy support from the start and grow them on in warmth and half shade. Set them out only in mild climates, against a sheltered wall; everywhere else they are greenhouse subjects. Keep the compost on the acid side of neutral and the roots cool with a mulch, since the plant sulks in hot, dry root runs. Water steadily through the growing season and cut the vine back to the frame in late winter; new growth flowers, so a hard prune costs nothing.

Our Take

A vine grown for its trap-flowers and its butterflies, not its medicine. Warmth, a trellis and no touching of the chemistry: that is the whole arrangement.

Herb Seeds