''Tropaeolum peregrinum'', the canary-creeper, canarybird flower, canarybird vine, or canary nasturtium, is a species of ''

Tropaeolum ''Tropaeolum'' , commonly known as nasturtium (; literally "nose-twister" or "nose-tweaker"), is a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants. It was named by Carl Linnaeus in his book ''Species Plantarum'', ...

'' native to western

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and possibly also

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

.Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan .

Description

It is a climbing plant growing to 2.5 m high by scrambling over other vegetation. The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are 2–5 cm diameter, palmately lobed with three to seven (mostly five) lobes; they are subpeltate, with the

petiole Petiole may refer to: *Petiole (botany), the stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem *Petiole (insect anatomy) In entomology, petiole is the technical term for the narrow waist of some hymenopteran insects, especially ants, bees, and ...

attached within the leaf (not at the edge), though near the edge. The

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s are 2–4 cm diameter, with five frilled petals, bright pale yellow (

canary Canary originally referred to the Spanish island of Gran Canaria in the North Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding Canary Islands. It may also refer to: Animals Birds * Canaries, birds in the genera '' Serinus'' and '' Crithagra'' including, among ...

-coloured, hence the English name), often with red spots at the base of the petals, eight stamens, and a 12 mm nectar spur at the rear.

Cultivation

It is a frost-tender perennial widely grown as an annual

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or ''garden plants'' are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars th ...

in cool temperate parts of the world.

Gallery

File:Tropaeolum peregrinum 31085421.jpg File:Tropaeolum peregrinum 31085427.jpg File:Tropaeolum peregrinum 31085426.jpg File:Tropaeolum peregrinum 31085423.jpg

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5477895 peregrinum Flora of Peru Garden plants of South America Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus