Aristolochia macrophylla Lam. has bloomed in the Summer Garden.

It is a vine with large heart-shaped leaves and flowers that look like pitchers. Under natural conditions, Aristolochia macrophylla grows in North America. Since the end of the 19th century in Europe, this plant has been actively used for vertical gardening. True, in St. Petersburg, Kirkazon is rarely used to decorate the city.

Aristolochia is also interesting for its original way of pollinating flowers. Kirkazon flowers are pollinated by flies. An insect that has climbed into a flower’s pitcher cannot get out of it until it pollinates the flower. The fly is disturbed by downward-pointing hairs covering the inner wall of the flower. When pollination occurs, the hairs wither and the fly, sprinkled with pollen, flies into the next jug. And the flower closes the entrance with the curving ends of the corolla so that insects no longer get into it.