Hi! I have a passionfruit vine of unknown species. I grew it from a seed from a fruit off my mother's vine about 5 miles away, and she probably bought the vine from Home Depot or Lowes or a retailer like that around here in Los Angeles more than 10 years ago. The parent fruit look like this:
The parent vine like this:
and the seeds like this:
It sure looks like Passiflora Edulis, but I don't like to assume anything! Anyway, I didn't get the cuttings to take, so I sowed the seeds in April 2013, got a seedling a few months later, and transplanted it into the ground in January 2014. It grew vigorously this summer, and now it's about 35 feet from end to end. I've had a few bursts of flowers:
but it's never set any fruit. Are all purple passion fruits self-fertile?
CFRG says "Purple passion fruit is self-fruitful", but this article says of p. edulis that
"The flowers contain both male and female parts but are self-sterile".
I'm inclined to believe CFRG over SF Gate, but it has me worried. Posts here on TFF
are conflicted.
Do I have to hand-pollinate? If I do hand-pollinate, can I use pollen from the same flower?
I only have the one vine, so I can't cross it with anything right now. My mother does have a few seedlings from her (expired
) vine that I could plant for next year if that would help.