Interesting, the Frozen ones I bought from my Local Indian Grocery Store had some Dark Purple-Blue & Red ones in the mix. The purple ones were sweet vs the red ones were sour, both had sour flavors but the purple ones tasted better.
I also found the seeds to be crunch-able somehow.
Fortunately I didn’t eat all the seeds, I actually saved some & are fully dry now. Do you think they will grow? Freezing shouldn’t destroy the viability cuz it’s protected by a fruit right? Grewia asiatica is hardy to zone 8 which can handle some frost right?
I am a newly minted 9a, so I will let you know if it comes back in spring. It does go dormant so I would think the seeds would germinate from only freezing, however they are imports and likely irradiated to sterilize them. Definitely try to germinate them though, and I’ll let you know come spring if my plant survives
That’s a good thought! I know some Mexican Guavas are irradiated, I didn’t see no Treated with irradiation on the Falsa bag but it could simply just not be labeled. However that said, isn’t the radiation light & doesn’t the fruit protect the seed from radiation? I’m also wondering if radiation can cause mutations in the seeds thus new traits as a bonus?
How did yours do through the winter @jamie ? Mine I was willing to let die to see if it survived and they did, with significant dieback. However they got a foot of snow dumped on them. Coming back with vigor though
mine are still in pots and were in the greenhouse throughout winter so they’re fine and fruiting now. i am surprised yours came back after all that snow, with no protection. looks like buds are forming too.
Our low for the year wasn’t crazy I can’t remember if it was 21 or 24 I think 24. But we had two snow events, one of which is the most my area has seen since the 80s. The snow likely helped everything though due to the insulating factor.
Interesting, snow insulator factor …
I usually don’t think about it but it’s really beneficial. I wonder how far can this effect be pushed?
Since it came back up from the roots, the snow insulator layer was very effective. Many “Tropical” relatives like Purple Passionflower use this strategy.
I think your Falsa is currently evolving a way to survive snow climates!
Save seeds when it makes fruits & plant them. There’s a good chance the offspring will likely also survive or even be more cold hardy.
Note that the tropical passionvines don’t really do this. They can (mine did last year) but it sets them back pretty bad, and if the ground freezes they will die. Maypops (passiflora incarnata) does do this, but it is not tropical by any stretch of the word.
Phalsa is from the foothills of the Himalayas. It isn’t exactly a tropical; even in some of the areas its commercially cultivated in India, it gets to just around freezing. It should be thought of like an average citrus as far as hardiness goes.
Yea… that’s what I mean to say . Passiflora incarnata evolved from a tropical species. I’m more so looking at the Temperate relatives of Tropical plants & trying to understand how they made the evolutionary adaption towards temperate regions with snowy winters.
I’ve just noticed this trend in a lot of Temperate plants with Tropical Relatives. Seems to be a common evolved survival strategy if the plants don’t figure out how to harden their stems, they can just survive via roots system underground.
Chayote, Runner Beans can techically do this with mild winters, surely with enough insulation + better cold hardy genetics it can survive in temperate zones.
I see, thank you for clarifying! Lots of amazing edible plants come from that region.
Are there any Phalsa plants from that region growing on higher elavation thus are more cold hardy from the populations there?
is Grewia asiatica the most cold hardy Grewia spp. or is there another species even more cold hardy that we can potentially graft or hybridize it with?
Yeah it is supposed to be hardy to about zone 8b. I’m not shocked it survived here in general, just at the size it was I figured it was toast. This uniflora came back also and it was barely larger than this when I planted it (from seed)
…
. Passiflora incarnata evolved from a tropical species. I’m more so looking at the Temperate relatives of Tropical plants & trying to understand how they made the evolutionary adaption towards temperate regions with snowy winters.