Fruit on the vine

Forgive me if I seem unseemly exited right now, but I've been holding my breath for a while and am finally confident enough to exhale. Why, you ask? Because of these, fruit on my passiflora tenuiloba vines:

Passiflora tenuiloba is a native Texas passion flower. It is very tiny, and thus not available in cultivation. That's a fancy way of saying you can't buy it at nurseries. Once I got into passion flowers in a big way 7 years ago or so, I decided to try growing all the native Texas species. This is one of the first I got--and promptly killed it by over-watering. Over the years, I acquired more through trades and even going out and digging some up (with the property owner's permission, of course). Maddeningly enough, most of those died from drought or being eaten by caterpillars or other such. The few times I coaxed blooms out of them, I only had one plant, and this species isn't self-fertile. So this summer, the one remaining tenuiloba I had in the ground beneath my big century plant seemed to be growing very well, and I was fortunate enough to acquire a couple new plants of unrelated parentage. Then disaster struck, when the neighbor's yard crew removed the trellis I had protecting the in-ground plant, and promptly mowed it down. I was, to put it kindly, not happy.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending to all this. The in-ground tenuiloba bounced back with surprising vigor, and began setting flower buds. Then, much to my surprise and delight, one of the potted tenuilobas set a few buds as well. Fast forward a few weeks, and I've got flowers opening at the same time. Hand-pollinating the flowers is no easy feat--they're barely a centimeter across--and juggling the tweezers and magnifying glass is a challenge. But my patience and perseverance is being rewarded with 11 tenuiloba passion fruit! Hopefully, I'll be able to coax some more out of the plants this fall, before all is said and done. And once they're ripe, I intend to contribute the bulk of the seeds to the Passiflora Society International seed bank, to make this interesting species available hither and yon.

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Tenuiloba

Back the other month, I had an unfortunate incident where the lawn men working on my neighbor's yard hacked up part of my century plant in the front yard and then proceeded to remove a small trellis and mow down a passiflora tenuiloba plant I'd had growing beneath the agave. Needless to say, I was livid, because the tenuiloba, after two years, had finally put out flower buds. I've been trying to grow this uncommon Texas native (it's not rare--it grows wild in parts of South and West Texas, but it isn't in cultivation and very difficult to find through nurseries) for years now, and bad things keep happening to my plants. I put up a new trellis to guard it, put down some organic fertilizer and made an effort to keep it watered during our ongoing drought. I was rewarded with it rebounding quite well, and wonder of wonders, flowering freely for me! The photos below are from the second bloom from the plant, taken with my Canon 7D and EF 100mm 2.8 macro lens utilizing a ring light for illumination.

The flowers are tiny, maybe half an inch/centimeter across, and easy to miss. The pretty colors blend together when just observed with the naked eye, and look like a dark brown. It's not until the flower is magnified that the maroon and yellow in the filaments become obvious. The bad news is that tenuiloba is not self-fertile. I have another clone of the species I bought earlier this summer, but it's showing no signs of flowering. I'm at a loss for collecting pollen from these flowers, as I can barely see the anthers without a magnifying glass. Harvesting and storing the pollen would be a big challenge, especially with no idea if or when the other plant will flower...

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128/365: Gossypiifolia

I'm a fan of passion flowers, and have several types growing at home. Several have been blooming, although I haven't had a chance to properly photograph them (at least, not as I would consider proper). Yesterday I saw that my passiflora foetida var. gossypiifolia (a Texas native also known as Corona de Cristo) had bloomed for the first time this year. So this morning I went out, and despite the less than ideal circumstances, grabbed a few quick shots. I like the color of this one, and it makes tasty (if small) fruit as well. The flowers close up by midday, however, so I've got to be an early bird to get any images.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon 100mm 2.8 macro
Lisa On Location

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That time of the year

After surviving the coldest, wettest Texas winter in recent memory, we've had several days of beautiful sunny weather. The plum trees in the back yard are blossoming, bees are buzzing around them, and I see crimson buds popping out on the pomegranate bushes. All this points to one inescapable fact.

I'm about to become wholly obsessed with passion flowers again.



It's an annual event with me. I'll sell seeds and rooted plants on Ebay, using the money generated that way to buy more seeds and rooted plants of different types. And I'll trade a lot of the same with other passiflora enthusiasts. Especially this year, since the drought and heat wave in 2009 wiped out a huge portion of my collection--including some relatively rare favorites. Yesterday I cleaned out some of the old pots to recycle the soil, and was surprised to find still-living roots in one. I've no idea what plant this was from, but have potted up the roots in a started pot and will see if this mystery plant rejoins us for 2010.

I also pulled out some dried fruit I'd stored and opened them up for the seeds. I had a single fruit from an edulis plant--that's the commercial fruit variety--I'd cross pollinated with my Texas native incarnata, and I planted the 60 or so seeds it contained to see if any hybrids would be of interest. I also cut open several fruit I'd collected from the tetraploid hybrid "Inspiration." The fruits were heavy and firm, and to my surprise, when I cut them open I found them full of juicy pulp. This is surprising, since they were picked in October, and all the other passion fruit I collected usually dry out within a month or two. Obviously, this one has a much stronger moisture barrier. If commercial breeders could impart this into farmed varieties, the market (and longevity) of passion fruit would increase exponentially (currently, the fruit is considered fragile and doesn't travel or store well, which contributes to its high cost). There were many large, dark seeds within, so I'm cleaning them all up for another mass planting. I don't know of any viable hybrids that've come from an Inspiration cross, so I expect many of the seeds to be sterile, but you never know. I may get lucky and sprout the next big thing in passiflora hybrids.

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Spring emerges

We've experienced an unusually warm and dry winter this year, even by Texas standards. So it comes as no surprise that the yard is waking up (actually, this started in mid-February to a degree, but who's counting?). The two plum trees are blossoming, and the pomegranate bushes are leafing out. Even the fig in the back yard has new leaves appearing. But it's the passion flowers that grab my attention.

Over the weekend, I discovered my little p. affinis had sent up a shoot nearly a foot long already.



Barely five feet away from it, a cluster of p. foetida var. gossypiifolia had sprouted and promised some aggressive growth. Clearing away dead vines from last season's sprawling vineage, I discovered several long vines that had never died back due to cold (I told you it was unusually warm this year) and had even started rooting from nodes along the vine. I took some of these and potted them up in hopes I'll have a bunch of little gossypiifolias to trade with other passion flower collectors in the coming months.



That completed, I headed over to the dog run fence to clean it off. My incarnata passion vines (aka Maypops) grow along here, as well as grapevines, coral honeysuckle and The Wife's morning glories (which I'm not a big fan of). I ripped down a bunch of these old, dead vines, and was surprised to find a green vine still alive, which hadn't died back over the winter like the rest. Go figure. I also discovered a 6" incarnata sprout coming up alongside a pear tree. While pulling up some of the dead vines, several feet of solid root came up as well. This I cut into sections and potted up as well. Some pieces were already showing signs of sprouting green shoots. More trade bait.



Elsewhere, I discovered tiny sprouts from my p. Inspiration hybrid, and in the front yard found four sizeable shoots of my p. Incense hybrid growing happily. My p. caerulea also proudly showed off dozens of flower buds that will likely start opening late next week.



Sadly, all is not sunshine and lollipops. After taking inventory of my potted plants, I realized I'd lost a distressing number of them. Two beautiful coriaceas, which had great varigration on the leaves, are no more. My potted lutea died off. My single triloba is gone, as are the two potted specimens of coccinea/miniata. I'd rooted several cuttings of the new hybrid Crimson Tears last fall. All gone now. This is exceptionally frustrating, as I had high hopes for all of those. Ah well, I suppose I can always trade for them again...

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