Issue 2 2011 Lo-res PDF - Passion Flowers

Passiflora Online Journal September 2011
4
The UK
National
Collection
of Passiflora
Newsletter Feb. 2011
I
n the late spring of 2010 we had 189 Passiflora species
and 112 cultivars, and when varieties were taken into
account the total was 339 taxa. Sadly this number
has been reduced by the cold spell in December last
year when one of our green houses that is frost protected
recorded -6°C and now stands at 283 taxa.
P. bicuspidata © 2011 John Vanderplank
The trip to French Guiana with Christian Feuillet, Maurizio
Vecchia and friends in 2009 proved very successful and
all the cuttings that we were able to collect during our
trip soon rooted when I arrived back in the UK. Having
tried several times before to cultivate plants from FG with
rather mixed success I decided to cultivate all these new
taxa in ericaceous compost and only water with rainwater.
This proved most successful and in spite of a cold
snap in January 2010 we managed to overwinter all the
young plants. During the late summer and early autumn
P. davidii Feuillet, P. curva Feuillet and P. fanchonae
Feuillet all produced flower buds. P. curva flowered
continuously until the middle of December and set several
fruit when crossed with P. vitifolia Kunth. Sadly the
exceptionally cold nights of December caused P. davidii
and P. fanchonae to abort their flower buds and both plants
perished in early January 2011, having only been subjected
to overnight air temperatures as low as 6°C with a minimum
soil temperature of 10°C. On the plus side, cuttings of all
these species seem to be just hanging onto life.
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Passiflora Online Journal September 2011
Passiflora Online Journal September 2011
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