A short-lived, rapid growing, evergreen vine which supports itself with tendrils.
It has glossy, bright green, 3-lobed leaves, intricate, purple/white flowers and tough-skinned, flavoursome, globular, green fruit which ripen to purple. NB Will only fruit when growing horizontally.
Passiflora edulis is often grown from a graft and this can be a problem if the root stock used is Passiflora caerulea as this is a vigorous plants that suckers easily. Stems with 5 lobed leaves are suckers and need to be removed immediately.
Varieties include:
"Panama Gold" produces large yellow fruits with a sweet flavour. This variety has good disease resistance.
"Panama Red"produces large red fruits with a sweet flavour. This variety also has good disease resistance.
"Nellie Kelly' is a prolific grafted black Passionfruit with medium sized fruit which is tart at first but gets sweeter is it stays on the vine getting more wrinkly. This one is ideal for cooler climates.