I think I sowed my passiflora Incarnata like in september or october. I also sowed an unamed passion flower that same day. Well I got Incarnata sprouts this past week. I also sowed some Passiflora caerulea maybe january or febuary and I haven't got sprouts yet. This is my first time sowing passionflower but I have heard they take awhile to germinate and they are hard to break that dormancy cycle. Some advise to even soak in some kind of acidic mixture prior to sowing, like even orange juice. Also they advise to remove the, oh me what is that technical name, you know that stuff around the seed. I didn't remove it on the passiflora Incarnata, but it was removed on the caerulea and the unamed before sowing.

@Shad Burns I'm curious, where did you buy your seeds or vines from? I grow them too, and I'm always curious about the source of passiflora incarnata, when grown successfully in zone 5/6. Mine were selected from the wild, in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. I'm always interested in hardier strains. @Helene Albert I am in zone 5b, Chicago suburbs, literally a stone throws away from you. I grow passiflora incarnata successfully. I have fruit that's ready to harvest at end of August continuing through to October. It's truly a may sprouting perennial for me. If anyone is growing passiflora incarnata in zone 4/5/6a, please send me a message through Houzz by clicking my profile. I cannot send messages by default to most people, because messages are not enabled by default in Houzz until you go to your profile and enable them under "advanced settings." You should be able to send to me, however. I collect hardy passiflora incarnata. There is some genetic variation. Even the white version of P. incarnata aren't the same, with at least 5+ different strains floating around.

Those darker nodes are actual sugar like glands, nectaries, that attract the ants to protect the plant from the likes of caterpillars. From what I've read, ants are usually not a problem of any sort, unless you stick your nose in a bloom and it is covered with them, like I did last week, LOL. The aphids that hit buds usually burrow inside the buds and you don't see them however I haven't personally experience that problem with passiflora only hibiscus. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1938594?uid=3739600&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103794922801

It's an impostor of some kind but not sure what :-) Passiflora edulis - the edible passion fruit - has a distinctly different flower and even the leaves are not the same as in your photo. Can you provide a close up of the flower?