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| Category: Vine |
| Family: Combretaceae (Combretum, Mangos) |
| Origin: Tropical America |
| Evergreen: Yes |
| Flower Color: Orange |
| Bloomtime: Summer/Fall |
| Height: Climbing (Vine) |
| Width: Spreading |
| Exposure: Full Sun |
| Irrigation (H2O Info): Medium Water Needs |
| Winter Hardiness: 15-20° F |
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Combretum fruticosum (Orange Flame Vine) - This unique bushy evergreen vine can grow supported to 12-20 feet tall and has attractive light to mid-green elliptical leathery leaves and the plant is literally smothered by the orange and yellow flowers from summer through fall. The flowers, in opposite 4-6 inch long horizontally held clusters, lack petals but have extremely long stamens that emerge from small tight yellow buds into a flush of toothbrush-like flowers, first yellow then aging to orange. A succession of bloom occurs so that the vine has a multi-colored appearance after which 4 winged red fruit are sometimes produced . Plant in full to part day sun with regular to occasional irrigation. It is hardy and evergreen to 26° F but can tolerate short duration temperatures to below 20° F with a little damage and some report it can tolerate temperatures as low a 10° F. A great vine with support for a fence or as a large espalier or even pruned unsupported as a shrub. The entrance to the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia was graced by a beautiful espaliered specimen of this plant and there is a nice plantings of it at Lotusland and the South Coast Botanic Garden. We first acquired our cutting stock of this plant from Monrovia Nursery and listed it in our 1983-1987 catalogs. Though we still had garden plants to cut from, our cuttings refused to root and we were forced to discontinue offering this plant in 1988. In 1997 we collected a single fruit from a plant growing in a Santa Barbara garden from which we grew a single seedling plant. This seedling first flowered 8 years later in the summer of 2005 and this plant, maintained as cutting stock in our greenhouse, has provided us with the cuttings grown plants we began selling in 2006 and continue to sell today. Peter (Pehr) Loefling (1727(9)-1756), a Spanish-American botanist, first described this South American (Brazil and Argentina) plant as Gaura fruticosa but also described the genus, using the name Combretum, the Latin name used by Plinius to describe an unknown vine or medicinal herb. Loefling was a pupil of Linnaeus and his death in South America in 1756 was considered by Linnaeus to be a great loss to the study of botany. Eichler in his revision of the genus honored Loefling by naming it Combretum loeflingii but since Loefling had previously described the plant using the epithet "fruticosum", this name takes precedence and stands as the valid name. This specific epithet is Latin for "bushy" or "shrubby" in reference to the habit of the plant. This plant is also sometimes commonly called the Chameleon vine for the way the flowers change from yellow to nearly red.
Information displayed on this page about Combretum fruticosum is based on the research conducted about it in our library and from reliable online resources. We also note those observations we have made of this plant as it grows in the nursery's garden and in other gardens, as well how crops have performed in our nursery field. We will incorporate comments we receive from others, and welcome to hear from anyone who may have additional information, particularly if they share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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