The following is an extract from my upcoming bookCreate Your Own Florida Food Forest(Heavily revise , Massively Expanded and Beautifully Illustrated 2nd version )
Passionfruit – and kin! (S, C, N)
Romance Name : Passiflora spp . Cold - daring : VariesMature height if unpruned : VariesPropagation : Cuttings , seeds
Florida ’s nativePassiflora incarnata , often call the “ Passiflora incarnata , ” is a common native wild flower well - known to philander gardener . According toBirds and blossom , “ Four butterfly use Maypop for their caterpillars : vary Fritillary , Gulf Fritillary , Zebra Longwing , and Julia Longwing . ”
In our backyard in North Florida we regularly found both gulf checkered lily and zebra longwing caterpillars on our maypop . The yield of the maypop contains mostly air inside , with maybe a teaspoonful of delicious mush that savour like tropical yield clout . The pulp magazine is exchangeable in tone but sweeter than its better bed culinary cousin the passionfruit , AKAPassiflora edulis . The latter , however , is more more productive and a better comestible . Another common passionfruit relative is the giant grenadilla ( Passiflora quadrangularis ) , which makes almost football - sized fruit that are fill with seraphic pulp .
My favourite of the kinfolk is the deliciousPassiflora laurifolia , which is the most delicious fruit of the whole bunch , with a terrific explode - in - your - rima oris tropical flavor that you would not trust . Also known as the “ water stinker , ” it is a very common wild food in the West Indies and is quite fresh on a red-hot Clarence Day . Another pop member of the passionfruit family is the “ banana passionfruit , ” which is actually any of a number of species . I have not grown any of this type .
The most cold-blooded tolerant of the passionfruit in Florida is the aboriginal Passiflora incarnata , which grows much far northwards than our state . The least dusty tolerant I have check growing in the res publica is the giant grenadilla – which is a very tropic plant – and probably wo n’t grow too far out of South Florida . I saw a nice specimen at the Rare Fruit and Vegetable Council of Broward County and was able to find seeds which germinated readily .
The “ normal ” passionfruit which is a much - beloved addition to tropical drink and punch , P. edulis , come in both royal and yellow forms . They failed to fruit , then froze to death in my North Florida food woods and did not come back , though they probably would survive in a sheltered position . After drop off two plants , I gave up on them and just grew maypops rather .
In South Florida , passionfruit and their kin are beautiful addition to a food forest and will happily spring up into the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and drop an abundance of mature fruit . Maypops can be found wild in awful arenaceous soil in the scrubland as well as in good hardwood forests .
Seeds germinate readily and normally take a few hebdomad to come up . newspaper clipping are also easy to start . industrial plant passionfruit and their kindred here and there where they can climb into your food timberland canopy and they will reward you with fruit for geezerhood to come .
