Purple Passion!

With the mangoes, melons, litchees and blackberries,
summer is also about yellow and purple passion fruit.
These are pictures of the purple variety or the
Passiflora edulis. It's a vigorous climber and can
easily reach heights of 15-20". A native of South
America it is grown in many tropical/sub-tropical areas
of the globe. In hot areas, it's one of the easiest
things to grow.

The blooms are striking mainly because of the size and the
thread-like edges. The oval fruit turn to purple when ripe.
The rind is thick and the orange pulp with small black seeds,
juicy.



See how the tendrils cling to anything in its path. In
this case it is the long stalk of a papaya leaf. If the
vine is not trained on a trellis, it goes out of control
and threatens to envelop trees and any surface it may find.

The passion fruit vine grows best in full sun to partial
shade. Apart from the fruit which is made into juices, jam,
marmalade or simply eaten raw, the leaves are also edible.
Cooked,of course! The fruit when ripe falls to the ground
but this does not damage the fruit. Any soft fruit falling
from a considerable height would be squased to inedibility
but the thick rind acts as a barrier to any damage.

The juice is a good source of ascorbic acid. Oil extracted
from the seeds is similar to sunflower oil. I've found out
(online)that the rind is used for making pickle. It also has
medicinal and cosmetic uses.





An interesting story that I found while googling was this.
When the Spanish explored South America, they discovered
that the passion fruit was used in native folk medicine as
a sedative. When the Spanish brought the fruit to Europe
the leaves were used as a sleep-inducing medicine.

The name "Passion" was given by Catholic missionaries in
South America. The 'threads' of the flower were seen as a
symbol of the Crown of Thorns, the five stamens for wounds,
the five petals and five sepals as the 10 Apostles (excluding
Judas and Peter), and the three stigmas for the nails on the
Cross.

All these photos except for the close-up of the tendrils
were taken in my mother's garden in April. I was on the
phone yesterday talking to my mother when she mentioned
that all the summer fruit are ripening. In her case the
list is a good one--mangoes, blackberries, grapes, guavas,
jackfruit and passion fruit. My mouth waters at the thought!
And that's why this post!:)