Passion Flowers
My interest in passion flowers began with a visit to the conservatory at Olbrich Botanical Gardens here in Madison. One winter day I was walking through the displays of exotic plants when one of these caught my attention. I thought the form of the flower was simply too bizarre to be real. Subsequently I ordered several different cultivars from Logee's Greenhouses. Since they aren't hardy in Wisconsin, I grow them on trellises in pots on the deck which is the sunniest part of the yard getting about four hours of direct sun each day. Each winter they are brought inside and kept in the sun room. I've never had any major flushes of bloom, but the occasional flower is still wonderful enough to keep me growing them.
The first flower shown here is Passiflora caerulea. It's got a light, sweet fragrance that my neighbor says reminds her of Coppertone sunscreen and I think smells like those wax lips and mustaches we used to get trick-or-treating.
The
next one is a cultivar called 'Jeanette.' It has much more purple
flowers and a stronger, more raspberrylike scent. Neither of these
flowers lasts much more than a day and I've noticed that 'Jeanette' loses
its fragrance relatively quickly after it opens.
The third passion flower I grow is Passiflora vitifolia. I had
the plant for two years before it flowered for me. The flowers, as
you can see, have a deep red color but no fragrance that I've noticed.
One curious thing about this species is that it apparently has nectaries
located on the outside of the buds that attract ants. What they purpose
it serves the plant is unknown to me but the ants are visible in the closeup
picture of the bud.