Posted by wilde on July 25th, 2008 — Posted in Vegetable
The Passion Flower blossom that opened the day before yesterday has now closed up, so the blooms are only open for a day or two.
The bloom on the left is the finished one and that on the right is just now opening.
Notice the spikes at the ends of the sepals. Sepals are white on the inside, which make the passion flower appear to have 10 white petals.
I didn’t capture the action when the passion flower opened its blossom today, but it opened fast enough to shake the whole vine.
Five elongated, yellow-orange stamens contrast with the dark purple and light blue fringe. The brown-tipped purple stalks are the stigma and style female reproductive parts of the flower.
The stigma are sticky tips of the stalks, or stigma, which are tubes that lead the sperm to the ovary - the bulbous, creamy white structure - where the fruit will eventually develop.
No Comments »
Posted by wilde on July 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Vegetable
Well, we didn’t have to wait very long for the passion flower to open a bloom. The pictures I posted earlier today were taken on 20 July, three days ago.
It’s been raining since last night and for the last few nights we’ve had some window-rattling storms. Maybe all the rain helped the first passionflower blossom open up today, 23 July 2008.
The common passion flower, Passiflora caerulea, is a large blossom, measuring nearly 3 inches across and almost as high. They’re very interesting with all that multi-colored fringe.
No Comments »
Posted by wilde on July 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Vegetable
A friend collected a roadside passionflower a few years ago near the northern state line of Maryland, probably along Route 15. For several years he’s kept the plant going strong enough to take cuttings each Spring. I was a lucky recipient of one cutting that accepted RootTone’s magic and it started growing very well.
Palmate leaves of the passion-flower alternate along a vine-like stem with two small half-moon shaped leaves clasping the main stem. The palmate leaf fingers are skinny.
At the leaf and main stem junctions tendrils coil out to anchor the plant to anything within reach. It would be important to trellis this plant to keep it growing where you want it to stay.
I did not expect it to bloom the first year, but there are half a dozen blossoms already in development. Flowers rise up from the leaf axils, one blossom per leaf.
I’ll get more pics when the blooms are out. Stay tuned!
No Comments »