I found mention of a variety of P. incarnate called Lemon Chiffon a few years back (from an EBay ad, which I bid on, but didn’t win). I’ve Ben on the lookout for it for almost a decade and have kicked myself for not winning that auction all this years ago.
Chills
@haldog, I may be interested, depending on how my fruit ends up tasting. I hear they can be tricky to germinate, though.
Just as an aside, I’ve got 3 different kinds of P. Incarnate as well as Caerulea, Capsularis, Incense, Lavender Lady and a Red I am still trying to identify.
Lavender Lady has never fruited (sterile) but blooms very heavily when the temperatures are cooler.
Caerulea pollinates Incarnata and I have a fruit forming right now.
Chills
I had a red passiflora cross that was Lady Margaret. IIRC, it was a variety that did not produce fruits. That and Incense were the original plants that led to having others forever popping up around here. I don’t know how much, if any, LM contributed to the pool.
I had Lady Margaret and this one is different. Next time it blooms I will try to post a pic.
Thanks.
Scott
@tjasko I’ve read the same thing about germination. I’m drying some, trying to germinate some now, and have some others sitting in damp cold in my refrigerator. Obviously I don’t know what’s best.
The wife ran over some of the vine this morning, so I got to peek inside some fruit. I’m concerned. They’re pretty empty, and I’m not sure the seeds are developing at all. Anybody know what could be the problem here? Is this just what unripe passion fruit looks like?
That’s the passion fruit is inside. mostly an airy pulp beneath the skin with fluid filled seed sacs. It takes a lot of them to get a cup of juice.
Pop a seed in your mouth and burst it to get a taste. It’s okay to swallow the seed, or you can spit it out. Expect to get a sour sensation from it, but also notice any other tones in the flavor, especially what the sourness develops into.
That one is still a ways off from being ‘ripe’. There’ll be more (not a whole lot more, but more, nonetheless) juicy pulp surrounding the seeds… but still a lot of ‘air’ in the middle.
@Lucky_P I agree that is a couple of weeks away from being ripe. When mine are ripe they get a lighter color, a tinge of yellow even. I “picked” three today that were no longer attached to the vine. They are ripe, and there wasn’t much space left in the middle. Unfortunately the one I ate today wasn’t nearly as good as the one I ate a few days ago.
I had a couple of interesting passion fruit observations today. We had a very welcome heavy rain this weekend. I checked of the fruits from the volunteer vines that are growing. Some had fallen, but more notably, something wild evidently likes them. The ground in one area was littered with open empty shells. That somewhat surprised me because a green fruit hidden among heavy growth of vines and bushes doesn’t exactly scream, “come eat me!” to critters.
Also, those that had fallen had a detectable fragrance to them - mild from the outside, but detectable. That could be what beckons the mammalian wildlife. I opened one and the seed sacs were well plumped. The skin had thinned and the bottom had lightened with a whitish, slightly yellowish cast to the now paler green. The fragrance once opened was significantly more pronounced. The seeds were still white in first, largest one that I sampled. Then the happy surprise. It was the first no named passion fruit that I’ve ever tasted that I found worth for pleasure instead of just curiosity! The flavor had developed a much more complex profile. Yes, the sourness was there, but had become a pleasing component instead of drowning the other components. There was sweetness and the very distinct tropical punch flavor for which passion fruit is known. (It’s what gives Hawaiian punch and grenadine syrup flavor). Highlighting that was the taste of fully ripened pineapple cut fresh from the mother plant. That’s a flavor of which I am very fond. Really, I couldn’t hope for better from the P. edulis that I have growing elsewhere. Most of my fruit growing surprises have not been happy, but this one was!
I also tried the smallest fallen fruit. It was the size of a store bought lime, but quite as wide. This one was at the stage where I had originally learned they should be picked. It had started to shrivel on the bottom. The green skin was thin and could practically be peeled from the seed cluster, which filled the cavity. The seeds had turned dark. The juice sacs had become more gelatinous directly around the seed, but were still liquid in the outer portion of the sacs. The aroma was there, as well as the fruit punch flavor, which seemed slightly diminished. Sugars had developed more. However, I found this one somewhat less of a delight, partly because of the slightly diminished fruitiness, but also because the sacs lacked tartness. The sour sensation was still there, but was concentrated in the gelatinous area clinging to the seeds. The flavors did not meld together as in the less ripe fruit, but stood separately. Perhaps juice pressed from these would give a better balance. In any case, they could be combined with some less ripe sacs for the combined flavor.
I’m hoping one of the kids with cameras that will download can snap a pic some of these so that I can post it. I’d like to show the size of the ones on the vine. They grow much bigger than jumbo chicken eggs. It was really a happy surprise to find fruits growing worth harvesting and using.
@MuddyMess_8a your description of the ripe passionfruit outward appearance and flavor is exactly like mine. I too prefer the slightly less sweet, fruitier and slightly tart stage, but my seeds are dark brown. As you said, the flavors meld together better. How many days do you think there are when the fruits are at that stage? I picked another one today that was excellent, and one that was overripe, and have three more sitting on the table.
I’ve never had any critters bother them despite squirrels, possums, chipmunks, groundhogs, and raccoons in my area. Maybe rabbits? I don’t seem to have any of those around.
These probably aren’t the best pics, but I still appreciate that one of my sons took them for me and finally sent them for posting.
Here’s an example of the size these grow to. It may have gotten larger, but wound up being picked before it was totally ready.
A pic of one of the flowers.
One of the fruits cut open.
At that stage the fruit has become tasty, but if left to hang until the walls thin a bit more, they are even better.
I found one that had turned yellow yesterday. It came off in my hand when I gently lifted it from underneath. The taste was not something I found enjoyable. The original tastes were there, but barely. There was a musky tone overshadowing them. The texture wasn’t fuzzy, but if taste could be described as having a fuzzy quality, I’d say that was mixed in with the muskiness. The walls were very thin and could be peeled from the seed sac cluster. The sacs were also less juicy.
I don’t think I’ll knowingly allow any others to go completely yellow before picking. I will, however, wait until I can feel more give to the skin than the one in the photo. A skin that gives more easily appears to indicate that it has thinned and that the seed sacs are ready for consumption.
Beautiful flower!
I am still waiting for my first ripe fruit. The main plant has many of them which have grown to a decent size, but none which separate easily from the vine, like I assume ripe ones will do. The one fruit on my wild vine got pulled off by an animal (not eaten, just picked too early). It does have some more flowers I’ve pollinated, but I don’t know if there’s time in the season left.
It’s been very dry recently; I wonder if that has had an impact. The leaves aren’t wilted, but some fruit were soft to the touch, so I tried to water it a little more.
My maypops (the flowers) are much lighter in color than that one. The ones in the ground for me haven’t done much this year, but my potted ones (I have a few that have seeded into pots) have done great.
Does anyone have strange leaves on their maypops? ( P. incarnata). The ones in the ground for me throw 5 and 6 pointed leaves some years.
For me in the frozen North here, I generally wait until the fruit are shriveling (which frequently means the vines are dying) to start picking them. Some years the seeds are black and some years they are not.
I’ve also got Incense which is significantly darker (though I prefer the scent of Incarnata).
Scott
First taste test!
I got impatient and finally picked the largest maypop fruit that I’ve been watching all summer. It took a little pulling for it to come off, but it did break clean, so I don’t know if it was ripe or not. Size was good; about baseball size.
As for flavor, I’m ambivalent. It was like sudden blast of lemon juice, which quickly subsided into something vaguely sweet. I don’t know how I feel about that, and I’ve still got a cucumber aftertaste. May not have been fully ripe, though.
Okay, that one was not ripe. Today I had two that were, and they were much better. They had already dropped on the ground, so I guess that’s how to determine ripeness. There were small ones (golfball size), with no more than 10 arils apiece.
The flavor was interesting. “Grape” is the closest I can come to describing it, but there was a lot more than that going on.
There are still a bunch more waiting on the vine, so hopefully they’ll ripen before it dies back, and I’m still eyeing the single large fruit on my wild vine… Tentatively, this seems pretty good for a first-year crop on a perennial, and I’m optimistic again that it will be worth growing.
Well, a few months later, I’ve got some passiflora incarnata seedlings. The germination has been odd. I put fresh seed in constantly moist seed starting mix, with bottom heat. About 8% of the seeds germinated within a week. Nothing for the others though I kept waiting for over two months. 3 weeks ago I potted up the seedlings. Now I’ve got a bunch more seed germinating, which you can see in 3 of the pots. Probably would have gotten some more seedlings if I’d just waited.
If anyone wants a seedling, PM me, I’ve got a couple of extra. I’ll try to keep them alive this winter under lights and send them out when the weather warms up and stays warm.
