Do I have a May Pop plant or a Passion Fruit plant - Ask Extension
1. What plant do I have?
2. How do I know when it’s ripe?
3. Will it come back next year….what do I need to do to make that happen? I’ve had o...
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Do I have a May Pop plant or a Passion Fruit plant #815602
Asked October 31, 2022, 11:35 AM EDT
1. What plant do I have?
2. How do I know when it’s ripe?
3. Will it come back next year….what do I need to do to make that happen? I’ve had others and they did not survive.
4. When I cut the fruit open, it does not look like the passion fruit I’ve eaten before. This has packets. See pic.
5. How will (once identified) this fruit taste or suppose to taste?
6. I’m in zone 7a. I order these plants through Amazon. I’ve done this a few times but this year it seems the fruit are getting soft. No change of color, sometimes it’s a lighter green. The fruit I cut was very soft, the one on the left of pic is soft. Note: I have a fig tree that’s growing and giving figs. They are green, the inside is pink. Not sure about them either.
Prince George's CountyMaryland
Expert Response
This is indeed a Passiflora, and it does look like our near-native Purple Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), though it can be hard to tell for certain since so many Passiflora hybrids and cultivars sometimes look very similar to each other. Responsible plant sellers will list the botanical name of the plant being sold, so hopefully your source included this information. This does not appear to be the species used for typical harvest -- that's Passiflora edulis -- though that doesn't mean it's inedible, just probably not worth bothering with considering the small amount of usable pulp. We don't have thorough information about its taste or use as an edible plant since passionflowers in general are not regularly grown in our area for that purpose; if anything, they're just used as decorative vines or patio tropicals (for those not winter-hardy). The fruits might be more ripe when the skin turns yellow and wrinkles more, as can happen with other harvestable species. We don't know if they can ripen once picked, but think it's unlikely.
I have tasted it. Stuck my tongue in it and it is sweet. I have some still on the vine and I will leave them there until I see that they are soft and wrinkled. Because I also have a thriving fig true I’m wondering if I’m in a micro climate. I am up on a hill. The information you gave is useful. If there is something else please send. Especially on how to keep it alive during the winter. Where it is, I get a lot of sun in the winter. I was thinking maybe getting straw or pine branches to cover the roots. Thank you. K
Our "native" (it's not technically native to MD, but it's close) passionflower is cold-hardy here without protection (if planted in the ground), so microclimate might not be necessary in that case. Microclimate is probably not enough to get other species of fruiting passionflower to overwinter in MD, though, and even the hardy species grown in a container might not survive the winter due to the root exposure to drastic temperature swings. Passiflora incarnata dies back to the ground in winter because it's not a woody vine, and resprouts very late in the spring. It can sucker profusely when thriving so in that sense can be undesirable in the garden unless this can be managed with periodic sucker removal/trimming so it doesn't climb over everything in its path. There are several cultivars of fig that are reliably hardy in Maryland, though a harsh winter could always kill some top growth, but they'll regrow from the roots in that event.
I have tasted it. Stuck my tongue in it and it is sweet. I have some still on the vine and I will leave them there until I see that they are soft and wrinkled. Because I also have a thriving fig true I’m wondering if I’m in a micro climate. I am up on a hill. The information you gave is useful. If there is something else please send. Especially on how to keep it alive during the winter. Where it is, I get a lot of sun in the winter. I was thinking maybe getting straw or pine branches to cover the roots. Thank you. K
