When one first stumbles upon the calico flower, it seems outlandish, an alien thing. Indeed, all of the 300 or so species of Aristolochia have bizarre flowers. And the genus isn't limited to any one area; birthworts are found in temperate and tropical zones worldwide. Certainly, Europeans were familiar with Dutchmans pipes or birthworts—Aristolochia clematitis was employed as an 'aid' to women in labor until the late 1800s. (See Weird Plants, January 10, 2002) But unlike the small yellow-flowered A. clematitis, the calico flower is large, darkly-colored, and imposing.

Auguste François Marie Glaziou was a botanist trained at the Museu de Historia Natural de Paris. In 1881, he 'discovered' the vine in Rio de Janeiro. The specimen found its way to Maxwell Tylden Masters, the editor of the Gardeners Chronicles. Masters named it Aristolochia elegans, the "elegant Dutchmans pipe", and published the description and name in 1885. This name has stuck around especially among horticulturalists, probably because the Gardeners Chronicles was a widely-read journal both among amateurs and professionals. And oddly, even now it is frequently reported that the calico flower is native only to Brazil.

The calico flower, though, had been 'discovered' and named earlier. A little-known botanist, D. Parodi, had found the plant in Paraguay and named it Aristolochia littoralis in the Anales de Sociedad Científica Argentina in 1878. The Anales, being published in Spanish, and of course Latin, probably had nowhere the readership of the famous Chronicles. And to further confuse things, Parodi's name did not really make sense. Litoralis refers to the shore, usually the seashore, and Paraguay is a landlocked country.

But Parodi's notes for the original specimen gave the location of his find—San Pedro ad littus Jejuí, legi 1867—San Pedro near the banks of the Jejuí (Jejuí River) collected in 1867. Even as late as the 1976 edition of Hortus Third, Parodi's work went unnoticed. In the final decades of the 20th century, the name Aristolochia littoralis, the "Dutchmans pipe growing along a riverbank" was finally recognized.

(Compiled from: W3TROPICOS, Jim Solomon, Missouri Botanical Gardens; "Aristolochia", Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY 1976; and A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, Christopher Brickell and Judith D, Zuk, eds. American Horticultural Society, Dorling Kindersley, NY, 1996)