Wild passion fruit?

Two or three times this last week I have heard mentioned about findings of wild passion fruit and suppose to be very tastey. Anybody know what they are talking about? I'm wondering if they are the little green gourd like balls that grow on a vine. I've seen them around here before and have often wondered if they were edible and for some reason I was thinking it was called "May pops". I could be wrong cause I don't see them in the month of May but only around this time of the year.

[Cyngbaeld]

Here are some pix:

http://hortiplex.gardenweb.com/plant...8669/page.html


Scroll down a ways and there is a pic of the fruit.

[Okie-Dokie]

Don't know where you are in Okla. but if you want to see a wild passion flower vine there is one growing as we speak. It is on 465th W. Ave about 100 ft. befor you go under the I-44 overpass.Very pretty blue/purple flowers and little green fruit. Better hurry, winter is coming fast!

[Okie-Dokie]

Ooooops! 465th is a county road going N. off of Hwy. 66 at Depew, Ok.

[countrygrrrl]

I have passion flower (May pops) growing everywhere here, and have been using the fruit to propagate it all along my fencelines and up a few trees. Very easy to do --- I literally just wait until the fruit is about turned then put it where I want it to grow, sometimes popping the ball, sometimes not, but usually covering it a bit.

I've also heard you can eat it but never have, as my immediate goal is simply getting the place ringed with it, so to speak.

Just gather up what you can see and put it where you want it --- that's all I do.

It's pretty invasive, but not particularly noxious --- I haven't seen that it crowds other stuff out. I have some wild poinsettia which is also kind of invasive, but also doesn't crowd out other stuff. Besides, the bees, butterflies and other critters love both the passion flower and the poinsettia --- and they're both really lovely plants --- so I just figure their bad points (somewhat invasive) are outweighed by their good points.

Not to mention, you can eat the passion flower fruit.

[Kygardengal]

I raise butterflies and wild passionvine is the "host" plant for gulf frittilaries and zebra longwing butterflies and possibly others. The host plant is the plant that the caterpillars eat so the female buterflies lay their eggs on it. Butterflies are not as plentiful as they used to be because a lot of their host plants are being destroyed in development. Please keep growing the passionvine. A lot of our native plant species are in major decline and many are really hard to find.

Yep, Cyngbaeld. That's the fruit I see around here. I never knew it was edible or I would probably done tasted it by now. Well now I'm gonna take a look around and see if I can find some to start growing around my back yard. If it makes good jellies and pies then it would be worth harvesting.

[george darby]

rather seedy but a good taste when the seeds are strained out ,the fruit is mostly air ,thats where the POP comes from,worth having around just for the blooms early botonist saw the crown of thorns in the ring the flower surounding the cross shaped staymen in the center ,thats where the name passion flower came from lots oftropical species and the juice from them is common in many fruit juice blends, the seeds are slow germinating and its an edge species usually found where the woods and open fields meet

[TennOC]

The Passiflora incarnata is a medicinal vine also. Used as a tranquilizer or "nervine" of sorts. I use the fruit to make a lemonade-like drink,(squeezed and strained) with lots of water and a little sugar.

[bethlaf]

cool, another souther plant for me to learn about, i have these on my land too, had no idea the fruit was food

[caballoviejo]

Unfortunately the gulf fritillary larvae (caterpillars) can eat the passionflower leaves up. B.t. works to get rid of them. Once I had blister beetles descend on a quarter acre of P. incarnata like in a Biblical plague - they ate everything but the lower stems in less than 3 days.

In Europe, supposedly, Passionflower was recently more popular for treatment of ADD than Ritalin is here. It may, supposedly, have some harmful alkaloids in it (harmoline) also.

[insanity]

http://rain-tree.com/maracuja.htm

Humm ill be darned.I may have to try this.I could sure use something calming.