Giant Grandilla Passion Fruit Vine / Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis in the NE Florida Landscape
Passiflora quadralangularis
Origins of Giant Grandilla Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis:
The Passiflora genus is considered pan-tropical, it is distributed among the tropical regions of the planet and consists of more than 500 species with most found in South America, eastern Asia, southern Asia, and New Guinea and some found in our very own SE United States like our native passiflora incarnata. They are members of the family passifloraceae and may be a vine, shrub, or herbaceous plant.
These unique flowers with their giant melon sized fruits are native to South America and one of the more cold sensitive of all of the varieties of Passiflora we grow here at S & J so they may need some winter root protection. Piling straw or mulched leaves up around the base of the stem in late December to January and removing it in March may help your passion vine recover more quickly form frost damage and get back up and growing the following season. If Temperatures are going to go near 32 degrees in our area, protect this beauties root system and lower stems.
Passionflower vines are short lived perennials that you can expect to live a few seasons in the landscape.
It is cold hardy to as low as 32-35 ° F and can be planted in garden zones 9b-11.
Blooms and Fruit of Giant Grandilla passion Fruit Vine / Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis:
Large 4-5 inch wide fragrant flowers in summer. Flowers have sepals and 5 petals that are a creamy white on the base and a very soft subtle wine colored blush on the surface, petals are more colored than the sepals underneath, but barely. The filaments on quadralangularis are extremely long and a bright purple color with wine red and white banding towards the center of the corolla. The stamens and the stigmas are both creamy white on this species of passion flower vine.
The Fruits really are the star of the show for quadralangularis, they are the largest fruiting vine of the over 500 species currently listed. The fruits start out green and young ones can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable. The mature fruits can reach to melon sized! Giant Grandilla fruit ripen to a pale yellow fruit that can reach to 12 inches in length. The pulp that surrounds the seeds is used to flavor drinks.
The vines will need winter protection.
Foliage and Mature Size of the Giant Grandilla passion Fruit Vine / Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis:
The foliage on the Giant Grandilla passion fruit vine is really spectacular. The huge leaves have a thin leaf blade, are a deep green color with evidently sunken veins on the surface and feature the veins prominently on the underside of the leaf. Stems are 4 sided and heavily winged at the angles.
There is apparently quite a bit of confusion and mislabeling on passion vine species in general but quadralangularis seems to be at the top of the list here in Florida with some plants being actually pasiflora alata, or passiflora phoenecia and some a hybrid of quadralangularis and alata called passiflora decaisneana.
This may be a work in progress, the one lesson I take away from my nearly 3 decades of study in this horticulture field is when you think you know something about plants… it is because you have not yet learned enough to know that you don’t know anything about a plant. And this happens with every single kind of plant and there are 391,000 known species in just the vascular plants alone. That’s humbling is it not? I am just on the verge of understanding that I know nothing about passion flowers so that must mean I am starting to learn because I have now realized that its just barely a drop in the bucket of what there is to know on the subject… that being said… here is what I am putting together on identifying the square stem look a likes, I hope it helps us both clear up the confusion in the Florida market.
- Passiflora alata has the square stems with 4-5 inch flowers that darker red maroon or wine red petals and sepals on the inside and green on the outside.
- lampshade or closed corola, if holding the flower in your hand the filaments would be standing straight up surrounding the ovary, stigma , style, anther and stamen portion of the bloom)filaments are banded maroon and white near the base of the flower and purple and white nearly to the top
- leaves have 2-4 extra floral nectary glands per petiole
- Passiflora decaisneana (the hybrid between alata and quadralangularis) this is the one that is thought to be most commonly distributed for sale under the name quadralangularis, and in fact may be a better option in our NE Florida climate for flowers and fruiting, it also has the characteristic square stems of the species list below.
- slightly smaller ( 4-5 inches) flowers and fruit than quadralangularis.
- Flower sepals are red inside and greenish on the outside, petals are red on the inside and red on the outside.
- Corona filaments stand upright and slightly angled outwards, are purple and white flecked all the way to the ends that have a slight crimp to them where alata has white banding is only towards the center of the flower and has straight tips on the filaments
- There are 4 extra floral nectary glands on overwhelming majority ( 90 percent) of the leaf petioles where a true quadralangularis would have 6 glands per petiole on 90 percent of its leaves.
- Large ovate leaves with stipules are .6 inches long and .25 inches wide.
- fruits are 4-6 inches long and 2-4 inches wide and ripen to a bright orange
- Passiflora phonecia may be the easiest to tell apart especially when not in bloom because it has bright yellow extra floral nectary glands on the stem just below the leaf base so for our purposes here this is all that is needed
- Quadralangularis has much more subtle coloring to the flower not dark or vibrant petals and sepals they are a pale with a wine colored blush to them on the front and paler white on the back or nearly white,
- most of its leaves with 6 extra floral nectary glands on the leaf petioles (between the stem and the leaf blade) some leaves may only have 4 but the mass majority will have 6
- fruits are quadralangular as well as the stems and ripen to a pale yellow green, 8-15 inches long and 4-8 inches wide
Although the vine remains evergreen in tropical climates, it is a tender evergreen here in our NE Florida tropical climate and will damage when the night temperatures start to dip below the 40s on a regular basis you may start to see some signs of winter frost on the foliage. I expect them to be barren here on the stems by January and to experience massive stem loss and regrow from the root system. In warmer winters where we just did not experience freezing temperatures but for a few hours in the early morning have had them retain some of their foliage and gotten through winter without stem damage, but I thought that was rare, hopefully they will acclimate and harden off as time goes but it remains to be seen.
The vines on the passiflora quadralangularis vine can reach to 120 ft long or more! When planting on a trellis remember to wind your vines sideways to get the most blooms and fullness on your trellis, it will go up all on its own but you will need to force it sideways and redirect growth back to the trellis that wants to stray to nearby shrubs trees trees or buildings as they grow aggressively during summertime when the temperatures and rainfall are high.
Exposure for Giant Grandilla passion Fruit Vine / Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis in NE Florida Landscapes:
Plant these pollinator paradises in a full sun or a full shade location. Morning shade with afternoon sun or morning sun with afternoon shade and filtered light under taller canopy trees are also fine for blue passion flower vines. You do get more blooms in a more sunny location,
Soil Preference for Giant Grandilla passion Fruit Vine / Badea / Passiflora quadralangularis:
Passion flowers are tolerant of a wide range of soils and conditions. Passiflora quadralangularis are at home in NE Floridas sandy soil gardens without needing heavy amendments of compost or manures at the time of planting. Just Plant them into the native soil and give them a nice thick mulch layer to regulate the soil moisture!
Want to see more Passionflower vines for NE Florida landscapes? Links below!
Purple ‘Incense’ Passion Flower