Passiflora decaisneana
Hi Nan
One of my pet 'beefs' is the changing and renaming of plants that we all
know and love. I CAN see the need for us to be able to communicate, but of
recent years it has become an academic exercise which has gone too far.
Anyway enough Janet.
We purchased this Passiflora locally - but I think it had been imported from
Italy. You probably know this one as P. quadrangularis. The following
paragraph comes from Passion Flowers and is by John Vanderplank who is a
devoted Passiflora grower and lover, and a really nice guy to boot.
" P.x decaisneana(my original spelling was somewhat wrong) is extremely well
known in many private gardens in UK and Europe, but not under this name.
Virtually all the specimens are labelled wrongly P. quadrangularis. This has
come about partly because of the remarkable similarity of these two passion
flowers." He then goes on to say that you can tell the difference - in
particular the fruit - when specimens are grown from wild collected seed.
There you have it. And you may say - and I would agree with you that we
would both have known better what each other was talking about if my plant
was still called P.quadrangularis. Anyway if you love Passifloras the
Vanderplank book should be on your Christmas present list.The illustrations
and text are equally good.
(An interesting language point. Europeans seems to call twining plants
'climbers' and you call them 'vines')
Nice to hear from you
Janet
Richard & Janet Blenkinship
Crete
Zone 10/11(possibly)
janetble@otenet.gr
