PlantFiles: Cork-bark Passion Flower, Devil's Pumpkin, Indigo Berry, Corky Passionflower, Corkstem Passionflower
Passiflora suberosa

Corky-stemmed passionflower is one of the best larval food plants for several butterflies in south Florida. It is easy to grow by seeds or cuttings.

I have one of these growing as a houseplant that goes out for the spring, summer and early fall months. It is a great little vine that soon grows large and in my opinion makes an excellent houseplant and enduring little buddy. It is November as I write this and I have of course brought mine inside long ago as it gets rather cold here in Montana starting in October. My vine is blooming like mad right now and I have been self pollinating the flowers. It works too. I now have very attractive little fruits growing. This is an extremely easy Passiflora to grow and I would highly recommend it for beginners, perhaps. It is easy to bloom and makes a highly attractive vine inside or out. I am getting ready to do a little experimenting and will be pollinating my suberosa with my apetala and my coriacea and vice versa, etc. etc. Wish me luck. Not sure if they're compatible but I'll soon find out, eh?

Thick leatherly leaves. Great plant for 4' chain link fences. I grow it as host plant for the Zebra butterfly caterpillars. Frost kills foliage to the ground. But vine re-grows from roots.

I've been growing this in a conservatory for the last five years, with low light levels. Apart from its novelty value (the tiny almost invisible flowers) it's invasive (seeds sprout everwhere in the border) and the fruit taste awful. I'm surprised to read the seed is poisonous as I've eaten about fifty fruit (individually, not in a session!) with no ill effects. One of our dogs loves them and goes around the vine biting them off, with no ill effects either.
But if you've got room for a passiflora or two, there are dozens of better species to grow, especially the common edulis which is great eating and fruits prolifically.
I've had a go at pollinating suberosa with pollen from edulis, to see if anything interesting resulted! But as they don't flower at the same time, I think that the pollen has gone off by the time I do the pollination.

This Passionflower is naturalized in both my front and back yard. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's a welcome, butterfly-attracting native that grows on top of my viburnum shrub and backyard fence. Contrary to one other post, I've read that the fruits are edible. I've eaten them several times and suffered no ill effect. This isn't a spectacular plant, but it's a good wildlife-attracting native for Florida gardeners.

As I feed birds, this is one of the plants which I have had bestowed on me by birds. It can be quite nice and attracts more birds and many butterflies. It can also be damaging to a hedge. It will come up through a hedge to the top and then proceed to spread thickly across the top of the hedge depriving the hedge of sunlight. It is very easy to control however as peering into the lower hedge limbs it is easy to discern the corky vine and pull it up out of the ground and then off of the hedge. I only pull them up when they're getting too big though, as young corky-stems are nice to have around. Never fear, by the time you pull one up, it has dropped many, many purple berries to assure you another corky-stem in the same place before too long.

I first thought I received this plant from a member of our local S Fl Galloping Gardeners, but I did not. It was a gift from the birds on the overhead utility lines on my East border. Since I received the original plant I have found four more in my yard.

The plant grows nicely without being overwhelming as is the case with many passion flower vines. The flowers are small and green, which is unusual. The plant can have several leaf shapes.

The fruit takes a while to mature but when it does, it contains many seeds. I have planted my seeds directly from the fruit. Use care when handeling the ripe fruit, as it will stain a deep purple color.

The plant is a favorite lavae plant for many butterflies.

It's also a Florida native species.

It is very easy propagating corky bark passiflora by sowing seeds. Seeds may be fresh or dryed and a few months old it will be succesful and interesting to follow the different shapes of leaves in their appearing. The plant is beatifull and rich in branching, 5m long.I grow the passiflora under glass .

This is a nice Passiflora. It does not take over the garden or sucker like P. incarnata tends to. The purple fruits are eaten by birds and the plant is also a larval food for the gulf fritillary, julia, and Zebra longwing caterpillars. Plants can be grown from seeds collected from the fruits, but it will take several months to germinate according to my reference ("A Gardener's Guide to Florida Native Plants" by Rufino Osorio, copyright 2001). Cuttings are the preferred method of propogation. The plant has very unique stems with ridges that develop as the stems age. The flowers are very small and fairly inconspicuous. Unlike the maypops produced by P. incarnata, the fruits of this plant are NOT edible for humans and are considered to be poisonous. In addition, the fruits will stain fingers and clothing if damaged, so care should be taken to protect anything you don't want to have dyed by crushed fruits when working around this plant.