Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Maypop
Exposure: Full sun. Zones 6 to 10.
Soil: Grows in a wide range of good-draining garden or field soils.
Growth Habits: Passionflower is one of our most beautiful native vines with its large purple flowers and showy dark green lobed leaves. The purple flowers are borne most of the summer and are followed by green, ripening to yellow fruits whose leathery exterior protects the delicious pulpy interior seeds. Passionflower can climb 15 feet in a season only to die to the ground for winter. Often found in old fields, passionflower will spread rapidly through underground stolons if given good garden soil in good tilth, invading your other plantings, so site it with care.
Landscape Uses: Passionflower is such a wonderful fruit and medicine plant; it is worth finding a spot for it in your landscape. Use it to provide summer shade or screening by placing it on a fence, arbor, trellis or shade structure.
Usefulness: Passionflower fruit is loaded with vitamins and minerals and should be eaten fresh or turned into a refreshing tropical flavored juice. The leaves and flowers are edible, while the leaves and stems are a wonderful, calming medicinal herb that has been used as a gentle sedative to treat insomnia, nervous tension, irritability, neuralgia, and PMS. The roots can treat skin inflammation, boils, cuts, and earaches.
$18.00 / 1 gal.