Passion Flower (Passiflora perusii)

Passion Flower
Passiflora perusii
(pass-iff-FLOR-uh)
Passifloraceae

I saw these two delicate Passionflowers in the Wave Hill Conservatory. The red one, although you could almost call it orangey, was blooming abundantly and seemed not to be going out of control like Passiflora caerulea does when it is grown inside. I didn’t know it but there over 500 species of Passionflower. This is the best reference to Passionflowers I found and ended up surfing around for a while was Passiflora Online.

If you have any questions about Passionflowers they should be answered there. I grow Passionflower in Connecticut in containers. This can be quite unwieldy but even though some are rated to Zone 6 I don’t see them making it in the ground around here. I have discussed my cultivation of the genus here and here. One of those posts tells the story of my famous Passionflower picture ;-).



Passiflora citrina was also blooming. It had an almost translucent yellow flower and nice buds. There was a third species, Passiflora murucuja, but the buds were closed up. It looked like, and I wanted so desperately, the flower would burst open any second but there was no joy. I even tried cajoling the bud to open with a gentle brush of my fingers but that didn’t work. I later read that the flowers are very short lived so maybe that was a spent flower I was trying to get to open.

My two Passions survived the winter in the greenhouse. Next week I am going to start bringing them out during the day and soon they can stay out for the season.

For further reading:
Passifloraceae

The botanical description of Passiflora said:
“Stamens 5 on a gynophore”. Which means: “A stalk bearing the gynoecium above the level of insertion of the other floral parts.” Which of course lead me to lookup gynoecium, which is “The pistil or pistils considered as a group”.