Colville's Passionflower (Passiflora caerulea)

Description

Passiflora caerulea, the blue passionflower, bluecrown passionflower or common passion flower, is a species of flowering plant native to South America. Found in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, it is a vigorous, deciduous or semi-evergreen tendril vine growing to 10 m (33 ft) or more. Its leaves are palmate and fragrant, flowers blue-white with a prominent fringe of coronal filaments in bands of blue, white, and brown. The ovoid orange fruit, growing to 6 cm (2 in), is edible but bland. Passiflora caerulea is a woody vine capable of growing to 25 metres (82 ft) high where supporting trees are available. The leaves are alternate, palmately five-lobed (sometimes three, seven, or nine lobes), and are up to 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length while being linear-oblong shaped. The base of each leaf has a flagellate-twining tendril 5–10 centimetres (2.0–3.9 in) long, which twines around supporting vegetation to hold the plant up. The flower is complex, about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in diameter, with the five sepals and petals similar in appearance, whitish in colour, surmounted by a corona of blue or violet filaments, then five greenish-yellow stamens and three purple stigmas. The fruit is an oval orange-yellow berry, 6 centimetres (2.4 in) long by 4 centimetres (1.6 in) in diameter, containing numerous seeds. It is edible to humans when ripe, but tends to have an undesirable flavour Though the fruit is edible, it is rather insipid when eaten raw. A tea can be made of the flower which is said to alleviate stress and anxiety. Often, the plant is boiled into a tea and used as medicine to relieve insomnia and allow deep, restful sleep. However, tetraphyllin B and epi-tetraphyllin B, cyanogenic glycosides (which liberate hydrogen cyanide when activated by enzymes), have been found in the leaves. It is possible to boil away most of the cyanide. The passion flower is the national flower of Paraguay. Its intricate structure has generated Christian symbolism, each part representing a different part of the Passion of Christ. The "Etymology and names" section of Passiflora contains more information about this symbolism. Passiflora, known also as the passion flowers or passion vines, is a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants, the type genus of the family Passifloraceae. They are mostly tendril-bearing vines, with some being shrubs or trees. They can be woody or herbaceous. Passion flowers produce regular and usually showy flowers with a distinctive corona. The flower is pentamerous and ripens into an indehiscent fruit with numerous seeds. For more information about the fruit of the Passiflora plant, see passionfruit.