Exotic ornamental

AMONG Passion flowers, the most beautiful and popular is the Blue Passion Flower - Passiflora coerulea. It is a vigorous tendril climber that can quickly cover a trellis or pergola. The exotic and scented flowers appear from May to September. A number of hybrids of the plant are now available and among them the gardeners' choice is the larger flowered Passiflora "Constance Elliott", a robust and remarkable plant.

Some Passiflora plants bear edible fruit. The fruits of P.coerulea, though edible, are somewhat insipid. Passiflora edulis, the Purple Granadilla, is the best known among Passion fruits but it is not so frequently seen in our gardens. Passiflora edulis and P.coerulea are self pollinating.

A native of Brazil, Passiflora edulis is one of the more than 400 species in the genus. It is now grown on a large scale in many tropical and sub tropical regions of South America, Australia and South East Asia. It does better on the lower hills of the Western Ghats where it grows wild in some places. It can be planted and made to flower and fruit in the cooler parts of the plains.

The plant produces flowers when the heat of summer has almost subsided in late June or August. Fruits ripen from August to November. Flowers are flat and about 7 cm across with five sepals (green outside and white inside) and five white petals. The thin filaments of the corona are purple towards the centre and with white curled ends. Fruits are oval to round and about 5 cm in length, purple or purple tinged green and the size of a hen's egg. Seeds are pitted and black with mucilaginous arils covering them and are embedded in the pulp.

The contents of the fruits are eaten raw or made into jams, ice creams, souffle, beverages and punch with lime, orange or grape juices.

P. edulis var. flavicarpa, the Golden Granadilla that bears yellow or orange coloured fruits, is a vigorous plant that resists nematode infestation, the bane of Passion fruit plants. The plant comes up well on the plains. This plant and some of its named cultivars are more popular among growers in New South Wales and Queensland and the Pacific region. The fruits of the Golden Granadilla are more acidic compared to those of P. edulis.

P. edulis var. flavicarpa is a sun and warmth loving plant. The plant thrives in a well drained and neutral to slightly alkaline soil. Too rich soil may make the plant proliferate vegetatively producing only a few or no flowers. A loam based soil to which some cow dung, leaf mould and river sand are added meets the requirements of the plant. Being a rapid grower the plant should be manured every year.

Those living in the lower storeys of multistoreyed buildings can also grow this plant to advantage on the ground or in large pots or cement tubs in their flats on east facing verandahs or open areas where it can bask in the morning sunlight. The climbing branches can be trained on tightly stretched ropes or on a trellis to provide soothing greenery in the house. The plant will need regular watering at the time of growing and flowering.

Some gardeners believe that patience is required to grow Passiflora plants in the temperate regions where they take upto three years to bear flowers and fruits. As the plants need warmth and light there they can only be grown inside greenhouses. In warm Secunderabad (Andhra Pradesh) for example, some Golden Granadilla plants were seen to flower and fruit within two years of planting. In Chennai also the plant grows and completes its reproductive cycle. But grown in the open in direct sunlight it suffers in the summer heat. In the plains, a semishaded location will be more suitable for the plant.

If the plant produces only leaves, judicious pruning of the outstretched stems and, if necessary, some roots will induce the plant to flower. Passiflora plants bloom on new wood and so even pot grown specimens flower when pruned. The best time to prune is February.

The Golden Granadila is easily propagated through seeds. Seed grown plants are preferred as they facilitate cross pollination which in many species is the prerequisite for the formation of fruits. Genetically identical plants such as those raised by cuttings or layerings from a single parent plant do not help cross pollination among themselves. An assurance for fruit formation is planting a number of seed raised plants nearer to each other in the garden.

Natural regeneration of Passiflora edulis var. flavicarpa takes place in November. The young plants developed from seeds or cuttings from selected fruit bearing specimens are to be hardened by keeping them separately in small pots before they are planted.

Unlike many other ornamental climbers, Passiflora edulis and its varieties produce flowers that can become a conversation topic as well as provide an annual crop of luscious fruits with an unusual tropical flavour.

O. T. RAVINDRAN

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