Those "pods" are actually berries. Quite edible if bland. If you let them completely ripen (actually the seeds will sprout even if green), you will find soft pulp inside and tiny seeds. Those seeds will germinate if kept at mild temperatures and high humidity, sort of like Begonia seeds but cooler. Don't bury the seeds; they are so small they germininate better exposed to light. Keep humidity high, but ideally ventilation should be good too to discourage disease.

Brian, There are several books on tissue culture that give more details on zygotic embryo culture than the In Vitro Plant Breeding book that I referenced. I mentioned it first because it is introductory, and I happen to have a copy of it. I think "zygotic embryo culture" is the technical term for the subject of your inquiry. Many of the books in this subject area are relatively expensive, so you will benefit from learning to use Amazon's Search Inside! feature. You can find more detail in the book, Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture by M. K. Razdan, in Chapter 11 (beginning on page 128) titled "Zygotic Embryo Culture". Apparently you can't link directly to specific pages within a book. At least, I don't know how to do it. But this link, Search Inside! Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture should get you inside where you can enter the search string "129" in the Search box and press the red Go button to get a list of hits for that string. At the top of the list is hit 1. "on page 129" and clicking on that will link you to page 129, which is the second page in Chapter 11. Just use the left arrow in the margin of page 129 to go to the beginning of Chapter 11 on what would be page 128 if it had a page number, which it doesn't. At $49.50, that book is fairly affordable, but it is temporarily out of stock at Amazon. Another good book, Plant Tissue Culture: Theory and Practice by Bhojwani and Razdan costs $370, so there is motivation to use Amazon's Read Inside on it. Once you get into the Read Inside your target is Chapter 11, titled Zygotic Embryo Culture, beginning on page 297. Entering "297" in the Search box is the quickest way to find a link to that page, because it does have a page number. There are a bunch of good books on tissue culture, and tissue culture techniques can be used to culture embryos that otherwise wouldn't develop into viable seeds. That makes it possible to grow interspecific and even intergeneric hybrids that wouldn't grow without using zygotic embryo culture techniques. You might be interested in the Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc. website. Dr. Carol M. Stiff is the proprietor, and she might be able to put together a kit specifically adapted to your zygotic embryo culture needs. MM

*S* actually, that's not much at all. I prolly use more energy makin' coffee in the morning than that bulb uses all day. I have a bunch in the "dining room" happily growing under a 250 watt high-pressure sodium bulb.. Last year I lit an entire room with a thousand watt hallide.. Then I recieved the electric bill. 16 KWH a day from one bulb is not a good financial plan for the lowly passiflora grower.. Now if I could only break the code on supplying the 90 year old glaucoma patients their "fix" legally.. That would be a whole different story. I wonder how they do it? I mean even if they have a "growing permit", some folks just cannot do it. Seems like someone should be allowed to for them, right? There *HAS* to be a legal way to do it. Oh well. A quandary for another day.

Sorry for the delay. I was bogged down by troubles using TurboTax and missed reading quite a few emails, including Floral's. It was a time of year (in Southern California) when trees around here might have foliage even if they are deciduous. In any event, the tree did have plenty of leaves. I must try to get back there and take a photo to post. Thank you for answering me.