Quick update for those interested in such things: I stratified seed taken from my local P. incarnata plants in the fridge for three months, then started indoors on a heating mat in February. Got very low germination rates. Ended up with only about 10 plants out of 70 or so seeds planted; most of these germinated within three weeks, though I had a few that took their time and didn’t show up for a month or more. Don’t know if that’s the nature of these maypops or if I could’ve improved germination by treating the seed in some other manner.
Five of the plants—the most advanced ones—are already planted and fruiting. Three of them show some promise size-wise.
The other two seem to want to make smaller, egg-sized fruits. Of course, all may size up some next year, when they’ve gotten established root systems. And flavor’s the #1 thing, anyway.
Speaking of which, I ordered some tropical passion fruit (P. edulis) from Florida a while ago, just to see how they compare, and I actually found the taste inferior to the local P. incarnata. (To be fair, I suspect those passion fruits may have been picked a little prematurely—though I did let them sit and wrinkle up a little before trying). The one thing that I did like better about the tropical ones was the smaller seed. The maypops do have lots of big crunchy seeds. But I don’t mind them too much, and they’re a great source of dietary fiber.
Wild ones bore like crazy this year, and we ought to be seeing some ripening before long.