Ok, this is the second attempt. I purchased a 1.5 inch purple fruit at a local supermarket last fall and planted some of the seeds. Grew out two vines overwinter and planted this spring. Pics are the first flower. I'm seeking some help to ID and would like to know if cross fertile with incarnata. Is this a normal flower or is there some malformation? The flower apparently had no pollen despite the coloration of the pic. TIA
The flower looks like an edulis f. flavicarpa. But the purple fruits usually come from edulis f. edulis. However, there are quite a few varieties of edulis, so there may be purple fruited varieties with flowers that look like flavicarpa flowers. You should be able to cross it with incarnata, although you would probably need to bud pollinate. If you have more than one seedling, the vines may pollinate one another--you'll have to try it to find out.
Good luck!
Mark
This message was edited Sep 4, 2007 2:00 AM
looks like passiflora sapphire, what do you think?
http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R1975-2
If you purchased a fruit from a grocery store it is some form of P edulis. There are many varieties grown commercially for fruit. Some are crosses between var. edulis & var. flavicarpa & they will produce purple fruit. It will be very difficult to tell which exact variety by flower alone. When the flowers 1st open the anthers are not ripe and will not shed pollen till later in the day. If the fruit is purple it will most likely be self fertile.
I caught the flower immediately after opening, so that may be why there was no pollen evident, but my incarnata have substantial visible pollen immediately after opening and that's the only one I have experience with.
Mark, can you tell me what bud pollination means? We've probably got about 45 days before frost here, so I doubt any fruit will ripen, but it is nice to get another passie growing, even if only temporary.
kudrick, the flowers are different, so I do not think it is a "plain" sapphire, but thanks for the effort!
thanks
John
Hi John,
Bud pollination is a technique of hand pollinating. To do this, you find a bud that will open the next day (you can usually tell by their size). Gently peel back the petals and sepals, and the corona filaments at the top of the bud. You should see the stigmae after doing this (stigma are the pollen receptive organs). Then take an anther from a flower that you want to be the male parent and rub the pollen on the stigmae. You can also use a fine tip paintbrush, but its easier to just use the anther. When you are finished, just close everything back up (it won't close all the way, but don't worry). I'll take a few pics tomorrow morning with my Incense.
The reason you want to bud pollinate is because it allows you overcome the incompatibility factors that normally prevent different species from pollinating each other. These "incompatibility factors" do not develop in the bud and stigmae until very late in their development, so if you bud pollinate in the morning of the day before the flower opens, you can successfully cross-pollinate. It doesn't always work, but most hybrids are created this way.
Hope this helps!
Mark
Thanks, Mark. I was actually doing this last year to maximize fruit production with my incarnata's, but didn't know that it had a name. I started doing it b/c the bees would get to all of the pollen before I could hand pollinate and there would be no pollen left.
John,
Here are some pics of how I bud pollinate. Here is an Incense bud that will open tomorrow:
Here it is after I pulled back the petals and sepals. You can see the stigmae:
Here's what they look like after I spread some caerulea pollen on them:
And here it is after I closed everything back up--it won't close all the way.
Mark
Mark, Thanks for the pics. Actually, I've noticed lately that the bees are doing something similar. They force their way into the flowers before the flowers open...Smart bees. I'll try to get a pic
John
