yellow passionflower

Photo: TheAlphaWolf — CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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.

Ornamental passionflower — fruit small and largely insipid.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Vine

Edible part

Flower, Fruit

Ripens

Late summer–autumn

Mature size

Slender vine 2–5 m

Light

Partial (woodland-edge species)

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern and south-central United States — Pennsylvania and Illinois south to Florida and Texas; woodland, thickets, forest edge and stream banks.

Status

Ornamental

Years to fruit

1–3 yrs

Growth speed

1.5–3 m/year — modest by the standards of the genus, and slender with it.

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, shallowly 3-lobed and wider than long, 3–8 cm across, often prettily mottled with silvery-grey and sparsely hairy beneath.

Root system

Slender rhizomes spreading modestly underground; far less aggressive than maypop.

Fruit description

Small round to oval berries up to 1.5 cm across, green ripening to dark purple or nearly black, with sweet but very scant pulp — a curiosity and a wildlife food rather than a crop.

Propagation

Seed germinates in 2–4 weeks from fresh, scarified seed. Semi-ripe stem cuttings of non-flowering shoots taken in late spring or summer root under cover; layering works too, since trailing stems root where they touch.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated, chiefly by small specialist bees; like most of the genus it sets far better fruit with a second, genetically distinct plant than alone.

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.