Purple passionflower

Purple passionflower produces large, elaborate flowers. There are five stamens and a pistil with three stigmas (picture 1). The anthers and stigmas point downward to contact pollinators such as bumblebees as they crawl beneath them, looking for nectar (picture 2). The pollinated flower develops into an oval fruit (picture 3). Some bumblebees get to the nectar of flower buds by drilling into them (picture 4) without carrying out their duty as a pollinator. Animals that damage buds this way (whether they can act as pollinators or not) are called nectar robbers. Other insects attracted to passionflowers include a variety of beetles such as the three-lined potato beetle, Lema daturaphila (picture 1), and the varied carpet beetle, Anthrenus verbasci (picture 4).