How long does it generally take to get fruit when growing directly from seed?
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Sowing directly after the last frost, probably the next year. If you start them indoors in the winter, often that fall. A lot will depend upon the heat of the growing season.
EDIT: In my experience, germination rates are not extremely high. I get better rates and waste less space and time by pre-sprouting the seeds in a sealed container of moist sphagnum moss sitting on a heat mat.
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In the Houston area there are several possible species that could be growing by the road, native and escaped both, and several of those are not palatable, like stinking passionflower and blue passionflower.
If it is actually p. incarnata, the maypop, it’ll be edible and probably quite good (though, again, they’re only really ripe when they turn yellow and shrivel up).
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I think even this characteristic is highly variable, and some are fully sweet when still green.
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Would you like the location so you can scout it out? Lol 
I’m a little worried about it now
Lol, not sure I’ve got gas money to drive all the way to TX rn
I don’t think there’s any danger though, either it’s maypop and tastes good, or it’s something else and doesn’t taste good.
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Totally correct. I’m puzzled by the frequent mention in books and other writings/postings that maypops have to turn yellow and wrinkle, or that they just turn yellow or orange when ripe.
It’s just not true. I’ve been growing these for years and the fruits are green when they drop and are 100% ripe at that point.
If they sit in the sun for days they can turn yellow and wrinkle, but at that point they are way past peak flavor and take on a moldy taste.
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That’s interesting!
Every single wild one I’ve had here in NC ripened yellow and wrinkled. Green fruits would have seeds but no juice, just fluffy white membrane. And that’s for both eastern NC and the piedmont area.
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@a_Vivaldi Lol at that point you may as well fly. Well fingers crossed.
@TrilobaTracker can you share pics of what yours look like inside and out when ripe?
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Sure let me see what I can find.
First, I want to apologize for being cranky and self-righteous in my previous post.
With plants there are few absolutes.
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Jeremiah posted a good photo of a ripe, green-skinned maypop further up this very thread:
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yep perfect example. That’s what mine look like 100% of the time. No color change.
Here are some whole fruits that have dropped and are 100% ripe
I wonder if @a_Vivaldi is finding fruits that have withered on the vine … ripe fruit drops. And varmints will eat those in a heartbeat, so they are very hard to find in the wild.
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House near me has some in bloom. Ordered some random seeds off eBay. Neighbor didn’t know that they fruit if there are two different plants so hopefully I can give them a couple sprouts.
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Folks keep me honest but that’s not an incarnata (Maypop).
incarnata can pollinate it, but the fruits may be hollow depending on the genetics.
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Oh no, not the news I was looking for. Maybe it is Passiflora caerulea
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Growing up I was often impatient and would pick them before they turned completely yellow and shriveled – invariably sour or even still dry and full of fluffy white membranes. The wild ones, at least in my part of the country, are not ripe until yellow and shriveled up.
In guessing there’s just a lot of genetic variation in ripening with this species.
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I think in general when they fall they are ripe, regardless of color, but maybe some selections hold their fruit after they ripen.
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Lucky enough to have them all over our property here in SW GA. Ours grow in hard pan clay, rich loam, creek bank mud, they don’t care.
Come back every year right about now. Ripe when they turn yellow which can happen overnight. We will have tons of green ones and the next day by the time we look there will be a few pale yellow ripe fruit with lots of pieces left after being chewed up by coons, possums, tortoises, squirrels, deer, turkeys, (you get the picture) everything here loves them!
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Falling when ripe does fit with what I’ve seen of the ones that grow here, though it’s not a perfect relationship. Sometimes they hang a bit, sometimes they abort right before they’re good, but that’s probably just normal variation.
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I grew some Passiflora edulis from seeds last summer and I’ve already had two flowers…so potentially 6-7 months and they are ready to go. My maypops I ordered from two different sources and one didn’t flower at all the first year but really spread, while the other started flowering after a couple months but never grew nearly as big as the other. Now they are both shooting up. I even dug into a spot a couple feet away and the root was about an inch below the surface and as wide as my thumb.
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