Purple beauty in a container Jann Miller style
- jjvanm
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
Published in the McAllen Monitor, November 1, 2025
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt
I was first introduced to a lovely native vine called purple bush-bean, during a presentation given by Jann Miller, president of the Native Plant Project. Her lecture was about container gardening, one of her specialties, which is an impressive feat in the heat and wind of Deep South Texas summers.
Purple bush-bean, Macroptilium atropurpureum, also known as purple bean and siratro, is a quintessential legume. Its classic sweet-pea-frilly bloom is a deep velvety purple, nearly black and so tiny it could fit on a dime. The leaves are clusters of three – botanically called trifoliolate. Flowers give way to thin green two-inch long seed pods that turn wheat colored when ripe.
Purple bush-bean is indigenous as far north as south Texas and south to Peru and Brazil.
The vine has become very popular among native plant lovers, according to Miller. A couple of years ago, Miller and Ken King, a past president of the Native Plant Project and retired biology teacher, had approval to do native plant rescue work along Texas State Highway 4, prior to that area becoming a construction site.
Miller’s container garden presentation included photographs of her purple bush-bean, a lush, healthy, blooming plant that had travelled throughout, up, around and spilled over its trellis. My young vine-in-a-pot has some catching up to do.
Outside of the pot, if weather, soil and moisture conditions are favorable, purple bean can root at nodes that touch the soil and propagate vegetatively, enabling it to work well not only as a climber, but also as a ground cover.
The term ground cover, in my experience, is a misnomer. Or rather I mistake it to mean that ground covers prevent unwanted plants from coming through. Areas of ground cover still need to be maintained and weeded.
With that in mind, a Wikipedia description proclaims that the plant sprawls outward to cover the ground and by doing so acts as an efficient weed suppressor as it competes with weeds for soil nutrients and smothers them under its vines. It goes on to say, planting it on a weed-infested field will reduce and kill weed populations and improve the soil at the same time.
I may give purple bush-bean a try as a ground cover. It is one of those plants that uses my favorite seed dispersal: dehiscent, whereby the slender pods split open, violently launching seeds several feet, an attribute that would be productive for a ground cover.
In the ground or container gardening can be challenging. Helpful Native Plant Project experts can help. They will have a native plant sale booth, including purple bush-bean plants, in the vender hall during the 32nd annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival from November 5 to 9.
The festival is at the Harlingen Convention Center, at 701 Harlingen Heights Drive. The vendor area will be open to the public, free of charge, November 6, from noon to 6 p.m.; November 7, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; November 8, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and November 9, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Native Plant Project is a local organization dedicated to the preservation of the Valley’s native plants and habitat. They meet the last Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Valley Nature Center, 301 S. Border, in Gibson Park, in Weslaco. Their presentations are free and open to the public.
