When I planted it I expected far more vigorous growth than I got. It ended up getting overgrown and was lost. It was never the rampant grower that incarnata can be. It is also a far more delicate looking plant with different leaves than incarnata. The few flowers I got were smaller than quarter sized.
I also didn’t give it a particularly sunny spot. Maybe it is more vigorous in a sunnier spot
This is good news for where I want to plant it. Internet claims it needs shade.
I have wild P. lutea several places in my orchard in SE Texas. It is fairly common in the open woods here, but I never see it in fully-exposed settings like P. incarnata. It happily clambers up shrubs and low trees to perhaps 8-10’ in a season, then freezes to the ground every winter. It is very long lived, with the very same plants coming back for 10+ years now. It will sometimes send up root suckers nearby, but this is far from being an obnoxious plant and generally very well behaved. The few adult Gulf Fritillary butterflies I do see, readily seek out these dainty plants and their caterpillars happily devour them. The individual fruits turn purple/black when ripe, but are about the size of a green pea. Here is one of the wild plants in my yard: yellow passionflower from Panther Creek, The Woodlands, TX, USA on May 26, 2024 at 10:32 AM by Scott K. Johnsgard. Wild Passiflora lutea, with Gulf Fritillary larva. · iNaturalist
Excellent to hear- I have a perfect place for this as a wildlife planting.
I just measured two I picked today. Some may have been larger but these were about 2.3 oz each
Flavor varies by fruit, but most are sweet in fruit and a little sour in the back and tastes like a diluted passion fruit. This is the first year the vine fruited and it’s already giving dozens over a few months. Very rewarding plant!
I’ll save seeds this time if anyone wants to trade or buy them
Surely you mean 2.3oz each.
Haha yes I got way too excited- 2.3 oz not lb!
2.3 oz is 65 grams, which is a good, fairly large size. That is about the average weight for my ‘Superior’ line. The new clone I’m releasing averages about 80 grams, with one fruit this summer measured at 90 grams. A real heavyweight!
Of course, production, flavor and juiciness also matter.
As far as anybody knows, are there any clonal P. incarnata releases that have been selected purely for fruit quality and production? I know of Alba, Snowpop, and a few others but from what I can tell, these were released more as ornamentals and produce decent fruit. I had the fruit of Snowpop once and thought it was good but no better than my average ‘Superior’ strain, and likely smaller in size.
Raphael Meyer might have some, but he’s over in Germany so it’s a moot point if he does.
Select Native Maypop / Passionflower | Passiflora incarnata — New Earth Nursery these people allegedly select seeds “for delicious fruit” not sure what that means and it seems a bit less thought out.
https://huruphansen.dk/passiflora/species-and-hybrids? otherwise id search incarnata here and just go through it to see if any for fruit.
Here is a batch of ripe fruit I collected from beneath an in-ground P. “Inspiration” vine I take care of in a pollinator bed at our local community garden. In my experience, the “sister” hybrid P. “Incense” sets very few if any fruits and they are marginally edible at best. However, this P. “Inspiration” sets a good crop of reasonably-sized fruit that are remarkably good flavored and very juicy. According to Ulmer & MacDougal, 2004, P. “Inspiration” is a tetraploid and lacks the virus/viroid infection that is pervasive in P. “Incense” clones (which also might explain the latter’s poor fruiting potential). Here are those tasty P. “Inspiration” fruits and a close-up of some seeds:
Looks good!
For those interested, I now have a waitlist for the new passionfruit clone:
when you say waitlist do you just mean click notify or is it like preorder.
Excellent work though, really cool to see this stuff.
I gotta pass the patent bar so I can help all you guys get your stuff patented. So hard to find time to study when working a full time job. I got dreams of offering the first few for just filing fees while i learn to people ive met in the fruit community.
But I can do registered trademarks if anyone ever is serious about that sort of thing.
It’s a waitlist, no preorders.
I understand the utility of patenting plants. But, for me personally I have mixed feelings about it. One of my goals is to release plants in a more open source way (although you have to buy it) but the ‘source’ that is, the plants themselves, don’t have any propagation restrictions. I charge a good price that keeps the business successful and honors the tireless work that goes into it without the need for royalties.
But someday, I may wish to patent a few releases if extraneous effort is involved.
i do think its a good point that plant patents can be used in a way that is still consumer friendly. Think allowing home propagation with a license if bought from certain sources, but other sources only having rights to sell if licensed. You dont need to uniformly give everyone the same rights. IF say, you wanted to give starks a license you could charge a different amount than a small nursery, etc. I like to think it can stops larger mega sellers from taking advantage little guys doing some hard work.
But yes I agree it needs to be used right
Zebra longwing caterpillars. That got onto my maypop in the greenhouse, had to transfer them over to some edulis seedlings. While less “hungry hungry caterpillar” than gulf fritillaries, they lay clutches of like 20-30 eggs at a time with 3 to 4 clutches on a plant. They can eat a whole plant in a day or two if its not a large plant.
… i only got them because i can’t find them anywhere else, my plants are probably already dead under my husband’s care, and they’re mislabeled at home as well lol.
Can’t wait to hopefully not kill the flavicarpa over this winter. I thought they would ship much later, not the other day
Ouch. They started to ship mine twice despite email confirmation it would be held until April. Lots of back and forth. No shipping notices for the last week…
