maypop

Photo: H3ini — Public domain · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Maypop — tart, apricot-like; quality below true passionfruit.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Vine

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug–Oct

Mature size

Root-hardy vine 2–6 m — dies to the ground each winter and regrows from the root

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

South-eastern and central United States — Florida west to Texas and north to Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois; old fields, fence rows, roadsides and any disturbed sunny ground.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

1–2 yrs

Growth speed

3–6 m in a single season — very fast, dying back to the root each winter and rebuilding from scratch each spring.

Spacing

200 cm (79 in) apart — about 4 m² (43 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, palmately 3-lobed (occasionally 5), 6–15 cm across, dark green above and whitish beneath, on a vine climbing by tendrils.

Root system

Deep, hardy rhizomes that survive winter long after the top has died away, spreading laterally and throwing up suckers well away from the parent — the reason it is hardy far north of where the vine itself looks likely, and the reason it can become a nuisance.

Fruit description

Egg-shaped berries up to 5 cm long, green ripening to yellowish, filled with sweet aromatic pulp around numerous seeds; the pulp is genuinely good but there is not much of it per fruit relative to seed.

Propagation

Much the easiest route is division — lift a rooted sucker in spring, or take rhizome cuttings during the growing season. Stem cuttings are notoriously reluctant to root on this species. Seed germinates in 2–4 weeks if fresh and scarified.

Pollination

⚠ Self-incompatible — a single plant, or several cuttings off one clone, will set no fruit at all. Controlled-pollination trials found no fruit whatever from selfed flowers, so two genetically distinct plants (seed-grown, or from different parents) are essential. Needs large-bodied pollinators — carpenter bees and bumblebees — to shift the heavy pollen; hand-pollination with a brush works where those are scarce.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.