Passiflora vitifolia is a species of Passiflora, native to southern Central America (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama) and northwestern South America (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru). It is a vine with cylindric stems covered in red-brown hairs when young. The leaves are serrate, three-lobed, up to 15 cm long and 18 cm broad. The lobed leaves' resemblance to grape leaves gives this passionflower its specific epithet, "vitifolia," meaning "grape leaves" after the Latin for grape "vitis." The flowers are bright red, up to 9 cm diameter. The fruit is a berry 5 cm long and 3 cm broad, with green flesh speckled with white, slight downy hairs, containing numerous seeds.[1][2][3] The fruit is quite sour still when it falls off the plant and can take a month to ripen to its full flavor of sour strawberries.[3] Due to the fragrant fruit, it is in small-scale cultivation in the Caribbean.[3]
A Passiflora vitifolia
References
- ↑ Germplasm Resources Information Network: Passiflora vitifolia
- ↑ Anthony Julian Huxley; Mark Griffiths, Royal Horticultural Society (Great Britain) (1992-04-01). Dictionary of Gardening. ISBN 978-0-333-47494-5.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Ulmer, Torsten and John Mochrie MacDougal, eds. (2004). "Passiflora: passionflowers of the world". Timber Press.
