For several years now I have had a healthy growth of pipevine (Aristolochia littoralis) growing along the fence in my back yard. The first year that it flowered, I was quite taken aback. I had never seen anything like these large, unusually marked flowers that resemble a Dutchman’s pipe. I’m not sure that I would call them beautiful in a classical sense, but they definitely have an exotic look to them. Each year they put out a few flowers starting in the late spring, but in early fall they put out the majority of the flowers. Pipevines are also the sole host to the larvae of the pipevine swallowtail butterfly and the reason that both the larvae and the adults are toxic and bad tasting to many predators. I enjoy the yearly flower show, but the vines also provide shelter to so many insects and small birds that they are a huge asset to the back yard.