My Introduction to Passiflora

From the end of July through the end of September 2009 I lived in a house on top of the hill between Noe Valley and Eureka Valley in San Francisco. It had an incredible view, and interestingly a climate quite similar to that of the Columbian highlands. Clouds, rain, mist and cool, breezy sunshine. My landlord's name was Carlos and he introduced me to passionflowers.

The front porch of his house was decorated with a massive Passiflora membranacea intermingled with purple Clematis and pink

roses. The backyard, however was where the true treasures were. He had one of the only, and probably one of the largest specimens of Passiflora parritae (left) in the United States. It completely engulfed a 20-foot Acer palmatum and scrambled up three stories of the house.

P. parritae is unique for several reasons. It has extremely large flowers (they can

be almost 8 inches across) of a very unusual salmon-orange color. They lack the distinctive corona, or wiry, fringe-like filame

nts found on many other passionflowers and have a very long floral tube. P. parritae takes this form because in the wild, they are pollinated by Ensifera ensifera, the sword-billed hummingb

ird (right).

Sadly, P. parritae is very rare, possibly even extinct in the wild. It was collected in a montane forest in Columbia and the only surviving clone was established in the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Strybing Arboretum. Cuttings from this plant seem to have made their way to some American collections, but they are all identical. This species appears to be be an obligate outcrosser, so unless another clone becomes available, all propagation must be vegetative.

Alternatively, hybrids can be made. And Carlos made many. He also had beautiful, enormous specimens of the wine-red Passiflora antioquiensis (right). This species, also from

Columbia is not quite as rare, but just as beautiful, and has the added benefit of producing many delicious yellow fruit. The cross pollination of P. antioquiensis and P. parritae produced the hybrid passionflower P. 'Mission Dolores'.

And what does that look like? Stay tuned!