Monday 31 January 2011

Invasive, Beautiful, Bland.

This Invades the garden and appears indiscriminately. I was told by several people to expect Banana passion fruit, but No. The best I can ascertain it is actually a Blue Passion Flower . 

This vine entwined with roses and Chinese Star jasmine, overhanging pathways and making a nuisance of itself.
The flowers are oh So pretty and intricate.
The ripe fruit is Orange, the shell is soft like citrus, the flesh is red and the taste bland and sweet with no tang of true passion fruit. 

6 comments:

  1. I have one of these. It is supposed to be a 'panama red passionfruit'. I got these orange fruit too. They were soft and squishy and fell off the vine before they got anywhere near looking like a real passionfruit! Can you eat that red stuff? Cos that's what was in ours but I just let them compost on the ground. If I leave them on the vine will they end up being the hard shelled passionfruit that I was expecting?

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  2. Hmmm I don't think so Jay but am no expert it sounds like yours in the same as mine. I ate it, the one that is cut in the picture but its just sweet, it doesn't appeal to me. My fruit is only about 5 cm long 8cm at absolute most. Sounds like yours is not what you thought it was :( here is a good link but what I have is not on there either http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/passionfruit.htm?PHPSESSID=81625dc3ba41b442c01509f25319d114

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  3. Tammy, I have one of these, with the tag still on! http://www.nelliekelly.com.au/grafted-panama-red-passionfruit.html

    Are you saying its possible that the one I bought is not actually this variety?

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  4. Sorry, if I can just comment again, I just saw this on the Burke's Backyard website. It may be helpful for both of us - then we can both enjoy REAL passionfruits!

    http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/forum/2/1/Growing-fruit-and-vegetables/topic/2284

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  5. After your second comment I was thinking maybe your Nelly Kelly had reverted to the rootstock plant, rather than producing the purple skinned orange fleshed passion fruit in the picture. Burkes seems to say the same thing. I can vouch for that popping up everywhere and it is distributed by birds here too.

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  6. Tammy, we get this amongst our true purple passionfruit...We call it The Rogue Passionfruit, but yes it can smother everything in it's path...and I think it is from the root stock of my good passionfruit. We nip it off as soon as we find any of the rogue....but unfortunately it shows itself from running suckers beneath the soil....so it pops up in the most unlikely places...often far away from the mother plant.

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