Plant Name
Scientific Name: Paederia foetida
Synonyms: Gentiana scandens, Paederia scandans, P. scandens
Common Names: Stinkvine, Stink Vine, Skunkvine, Skunk Vine, Maile Pilau
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial, Evergreen
Growth Habit: Shrub, Vine
Hawaii Native Status: Introduced. This naturalized weed is native to East Asia.
Flower Color: Bicolored white to yellowish ivory and red
Height: To 23 feet (7 m) tall
Description: The flowers are small, tubular, white and finely tufted with woolly hair on the outside, red and lined with purple hair on the inside, and have 5 ruffled, toothed, blunt-tipped lobes. The flowers are followed by rounded, up to 1/4 inch (6 mm) in diameter, shiny, green maturing to orange-brown fruit. The leaves are green, opposite, petiolate, mostly hairless, and oblong-lanceolate to egg-shaped with a pointed tip. The stems are slender and twining.
Stinkvine grows in low to middle elevation disturbed areas and secondary forests, and it is especially common is disturbed mesic (moderately wet) forests, where it can climb over and smother other plants.
Special Characteristics
Butterfly Plant – This is the main larval food plant for the Maile Pilau Hornworm (Macroglossum pyrrhostictum), a frequently day-flying hummingbird moth.
Foul-smelling – Although often scentless, the plants can emit a foul, garbage-like odor, especially on still, humid evenings.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Rubiales
Family: Rubiaceae – Madder family
Genus: Paederia L. – sewer vine
Species: Paederia foetida L. – stinkvine
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