Is your passion flower showing small, maybe still green fruits? Congratulations! You can count yourself lucky, because in our latitudes the Passiflora only produces fruit under good conditions. But be careful: the mostly orange or brown-purple berries when ripe are only edible in a few species from the large passion flower family.
These passiflora form edible fruits
The table below shows the names of the most important edible Passiflora species, although the list is of course not complete. Of the more than 500 different members of this very extensive plant family, around 50 to 60 form edible fruits. Some species are little known to us and only very rarely develop ripe fruit under the local conditions, but are deliberately cultivated in their home countries to provide fruit. Others, such as passion fruit, can also be found in our supermarkets.
| Passiflora species | popular name | origin | blossom | fruit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P. edulis forma edulis | passion fruit | tropics | white-purple | dark brown-red, wrinkled skin |
| P. edulis forma flavicarpa | passion fruit | tropics | white-purple | greenish to yellow, larger than passion fruit |
| P. ligularis | grenadilla or granadilla | Peru | white-purple | deep yellow |
| P. quadrangularis | Barbadine, king grenadilla | West Indies | Petals dark red, coronal white-purple | very large fruits |
| P. alata | - | Peru and Brazil | Red | yellow to light orange |
| P. incarnata | Flesh colored passion flower | North America | white, violet or pale pink | greenish to yellow, about the size of a hen's egg |
It is better not to eat these passion fruits
The fruits of most Passiflora are not poisonous, but only inedible or not very tasty. However, a few species are actually not suitable for consumption, and unripe fruits are even poisonous in many cases. Absolutely not edible (on the contrary, because they are even poisonous) are all Passiflora of the genus Decaloba and their hybrids (crossbreeds).
Use fruits for seed production
However, fruit development is not that easy. You need to know exactly what species your Passiflora belongs to and how it is pollinated - fruit with seeds will only develop if the flower has been pollinated at the right time. In nature, some passion flowers are fertilized by bats, others by hummingbirds or by bees or butterflies. Also, some species can be cross-pollinated, some only by their own species, and a few of their own are self-pollinating. For fruiting at home, you usually have to pick up a brush and pollinate by hand. The seeds of ripe fruits can be used for propagation.
tips and tricks
In the case of Passiflora, you can quickly become a breeder yourself and create your own varieties, since many species can be crossed with each other.