Download Passiflora incarnata, Purple Passionflower

Of interest this week at Beal...
Purple Passionflower
Passiflora incarnata
W. J. Beal
Botanical Garden
Family: the Passionflower family, Passifloraceae.
Also called May-Pop, and Wild apricot
The purple passionflower, Passiflora incarnata, is an herbaceous vine, native to the
southeast quadrant of North America. It, and its fruit often are called maypops. It is the
fruits of passionflowers that provide the most popular of the food uses for the plant,
used in drinks and ice creams. But it is the flower, captivating by its complex beauty,
and its history as an icon of Christian myth that generate the most interest.
There are many passionflower species (Passiflora spp.) and all of them are native to
the new world tropics, or near-tropics. Depending on which taxonomy you choose,
there are between 400 and 600 species in this genus. The purple passionflower is found
farther outside the tropics than any other passionflower. It has been found at least as
far north as Missouri in the West and New Jersey in the eastern United States.
Although the intricate and striking flowers are beautiful and fragrant, their connection
to passion is not over love or romance. Passion, in this context, refers to the Passion
of Christ. Spanish Christian missionaries, saw the numerological aspects of the flower
as a sign from God that their mission in the New World was God’s will. When the
Vatican received the first drawings of the flowers, the clerics reviewing them thought
the illustrations were so fanciful as to not be real. It was not until much later, after
many missionaries were interviewed, that these unmistakable flowers were accepted as
a possibly real organism.
The initial Christian interpretation of the flower was based upon the ten tepals
(standing for the apostles, minus Judas and Peter, the “traitor” apostles), the three
spreading styles (symbolizing the three nails used to crucify Christ), the five stamens
(symbolizing the five wounds of the crucified Christ), and the 72 spikes of the corona
(reminding one of the thorns on the crown of thorns). Giacomo Bosio, an Italian
ecclesiastic and historian, actually interpreted that the unopened, bell-shaped flowers
The basic morphology of the blossom of
Purple passionflower, Passiflora incarnata.
Styles
Stamens
Petals (Tepals)
Coronal filaments
held these sacred symbols from the view of heathens who had not yet been converted
to Christianity. He also saw the lobed leaves and long green tendrils depicting the
hands and whips of Christ’s prosecutors (or variously their spears and whips).
In the insect world, the passionflower family is well known for being larval food plants
of many exotic butterflies, especially tropical heliconians. Although we do not see
them in Michigan, Passiflora incarnata is the main food plant of the beautiful Gulf
fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, and is common throughout the gulf-coast United States.
In traditional and alternative medicine, it has been used as a herbal medicine to treat
nervous anxiety and insomnia. In Europe, the dried, ground herb is frequently drunk by
adding a teaspoon of it to tea.
There are many reports of people cultivating this plant in areas that seem way
outside their formal ranges. If this plant calls to you, it can be acquired through
nurseries and various internet sellers.