California Snakeroot Care

One of the most distinctive of California's endemic plants is Aristolochia californica, the California pipevine or California Dutchman's-pipe. It is a deciduous vine with purple-striped curving pipe-shaped flowers which give rise to winged capsular green fruits. If given the right conditions it will flower profusely. After it blooms, the plant sends out new green heart-shaped leaves. The vines grow from rhizomes to a length of over twenty feet and can become quite thick in circumference at maturity. In the wild it will spread out over open ground or sprawl over other plants. This plant is common in moist woods and along streams in northern and central California, usually below 1,500 ft. The flowers have an unpleasant odor which is attractive to tiny carrion-feeding insects. The insects crawl into the convoluted flowers and often become stuck and disoriented for some time, picking up pollen as they wander. Most eventually escape; the plant is not insectivorous as was once thought.