Wikimedia Commons
Bignoniaceae
Cross Vine
Bignonia capreolata
Aspiration, hummingbird gift, climbing grace.
- Family
- Bignoniaceae
- Genus
- Bignonia
- Native to
- Southeastern United States
- Bloom season
- Spring
- Type
- Evergreen vine
- Height
- 9–15 m (30–50 ft) climbing
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Soil
- Rich, moist, well-drained
- Water
- Moderate
- Hardiness
- 6–9
- Lifespan
- Long-lived perennial
Did you know
- Cross vine gets its name from the cross-shaped pattern visible inside a cut stem—a botanical curiosity that early settlers took as a sign of divine providence.
- The orange-and-red trumpet flowers are timed perfectly to feed ruby-throated hummingbirds returning from their migration to Mexico—the vine blooms exactly as the first migrants arrive in early April.
- Unlike most vines that twine around supports, cross vine climbs by pressing tiny adhesive disks against tree bark—it can scale a 60-foot oak without ever wrapping a single tendril.
- The cultivar 'Tangerine Beauty' was discovered in a Texas garden in the 1990s and has become one of the most popular vines in the American South—bright tangerine flowers and a faint mocha fragrance.
- Cross vine is one of the few evergreen flowering vines hardy in the southern Appalachians—its leaves stay dark green all winter, then turn bronze-purple after hard frosts.
Color meanings
0
aspiration
1
hummingbird gift
2
climbing grace