Congratulations on your new baby - I heard that the first batch of parritae had been sent out. Protect it!....lol...they are now so in demand that it is hard to get one.

I picked one up last fall at a Strybing plant sale but it seems ( horrors of horrors ) I may have lost it :o(. I was on vacation the first week in March and we got hit with a bizarre (for this area) heat wave. Temps in my greenhouse jumped over a hundred and parritae has a problem with this. I say nice things to root ball in the gallon pot that mine was in everytime I pass it - just hoping that maybe there is some tiny spark of life hiding down there...cannot hurt to hope.

I was at Strybing yesterday and ask about purchasing a replacement and they said that since the article came out in Pacific Horticulture about it that they have a huge waiting list.

From what I can say from my experience is that they can be grouchy about being moved around and have a tendancy to drop their leaves easily - but they do regrow.

You're probably right about the grouchiness. The instructions it came with recommended potting it up to a one gallon container and letting it be for a year. Looks like it will be at least 2 years before I will get any cuttings off of it. Thankfully, growing conditions will probably be good for it here until at least the end of June.

I'm a volunteer at Strybing's nursery, where I do passifloras and other vines. I helped grow your little parritae. They're pretty fussy plants, but quite spectacular when they get established. They seem to be hard to root from cuttings. We only had about a 10% success rate on the cuttings we did last summer, which is why there's a big waiting list for them now. We're going to be doing more cuttings this year, hopefully with a higher success rate.

I hope yours does well - it's definitely a rare one.

does anyone know if strybing/sf botanical garden will have more parritae for sale at the upcoming plant sales?

also, how big would this plant have to get before it flowers? the photos of it seem to suggest after climbing up a tree?? so like maybe 10 ft?

Strybing won't have it at any plant sales soon - maybe at the big May sale next year. We're doing loads of cuttings, but they're hard to get started. Pacific Horticulture had parritae as their Plant Promotion in the last spring issue, and we ran out of plants. So we still have a big backlog of orders that we need to fill before they're available at the sales.

I haven't grown it myself, and I've only seen the flowers on the plant at Strybing, but I would say that parritae probably needs to get pretty big before it flowers.

Wouldn't it be more production-efficient to grow it from seed?

Just came back from UC Berkeley Botanic garden plant sale and I found one of these treasures. Looks great - the wonderful gentleman who I spoke with there said to keep it a bit pot bound for awhile before transplanting it - (it's in a gallon can currently) and to feed it MaxSea 14-18-14. He said it loves to be fed. I can't wait! I also got a Passiflora coriacea (bat wing) Ahh, the things you find at plant sales!

Some pics of this stunning plant and its flowers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Passiflora parritae

Oh my gosh, are they orange???!

I hate to do this but SoCal, are you making cuttings?!

Oh, duh. I missed that comment about it being a while before you can take cuttings. Does it really take 4-5 years to flower???

Don't show me pictures like that for plants I can't obtain.

Here's another one I'm looking for. (Payback:-)

Here is a link that might be useful:

The trouble with importing plants into Italy from USA is that they are expected to be barerooted and therefore ulikely to arrive alive.
I would like to by seeds of P. parritae or/and its hybrid. This is more chancy (seeds do not always germinate) but solves the problem of importing plants. OPf course I am prepared to pay a suitable price for them.
Can anybody advise?

Bruno,

You will not find P. parritae seeds anywhere; if you do they are unlikely to be genuine. I believe there are additional clones in Europe, so this may change at some point. You should check with the Ulmers in Germany and see when they will be selling the plant again:

http://www.blumen-passiflora.de/randshop/themes/kategorie/detail.php?artikelid=152&source=2

There is a grower with seedlings from the P. 'Mission Dolores' hybrid in the UK; I have no idea when/if he plans to sell any.

May I ask on how to purchase " passi parritae" from Strybing place ? Been wanting this for awhile.

Or, if anyone has small plant/cutting I can buy.

Thanks.

Strybing has sold very few P. parritae over the last two years. I don't work there, but I know the guy who does most of the propagating and propagation has slowed down for several reasons.

Last December's freezes hit Strybing pretty hard, particularly the big P. parritae, as well as a private one which I believe is also a source of cuttings. A lot of propagated plants were lost, I don't know if this included young P. parritaes. The big plant at Strybing survived, and was full of flowers last I checked. However, I assume the freeze damage has slowed down the production of new plants.

When Strybing is selling P. parritae, one of the best ways to get one is often at the member's only day of the big annual plant sale. 3-4 years ago they sold about 20. A year ago they only sold one, for $200 at the silent auction. This year I don't think they sold any.

In the short to medium term seeds might be the best bet. Genuine seeds have become available over the last couple years. However, I have heard a couple stories of people being burned by Ebay sellers selling seeds that are not P. parritae. I think the seeds sold by the seller "Strange Wonderful Things" are likely to be legitimate. Beyond that I don't know. In principle there should be a number of seedlings out there as well (?)

It's important to realize that P. parritae can grown successfully in very few areas of the United States. As far as I'm aware this is only some areas near the coast in California. I've heard that even coastal San Diego is difficult or impossible, due to the warm summer nights. A climate like that of San Jose is probably borderline, both a little too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter. I have heard one report of P. parritae bloming in a pot, with one flower. The plant really needs to be grown in the ground.

I would imagine that people who have the climate to succeed with P. parritae would also succeed with its hybrid P. 'Mission Dolores' (P. parritae x P. antioquiensis). P. 'Mission Dolores' is more readily available, and typically cheaper than P. parritae. If you don't live in a frost-free climate with summer highs in the 60s, it might make sense to try that one before spending tons on P. parritae. Grassy Knoll Exotics is a source of P. 'Mission Dolores', although it's not always in stock.

Here is a link that might be useful: P. 'Mission Dolores' at Grassy Knoll

Thanks, mark4321 for the reply and information about this plant. I live in Hollywood,Florida for now and make sense try to get the more common ones here & see if it does well here.

cara

Hi Cara,

For Florida, the best potential option for growing P. parritae is from eventually buying or making a grafted plant, if such plants are indeed suitable. The idea is that grafting P. parritae (or other cool growing Passifloras) onto the rootstock of a heat resistant plant will enable the plant to exist in the temperatures there. As far as I'm aware this is still an idea, with a few encouraging results. I know of 2 people who are graduate students at the University of Florida working on this. One is Ethan ("ethane" on Gardenweb), who has posted a tutorial on grafting:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/passiflora/msg0617494330218.html?11

This is one case where I think it's important to be blunt. Given the amount of money and time spent, it's unethical not to. P. parritae is not an appropriate choice for Florida. Possibly there are sellers suggesting that it is "experimental" or that it "may not" do well. If so, that is misleading, as they know it will fail. One person who can back me up is Ethan, just mentioned. Also Jim Nevers, who runs a Passiflora nursery in Florida, and can no doubt be contacted through Ebay, where he sells as "passiflorista". There are many people in California, including the Passiflora society president, Eric Wortman, who can be contacted by a number of means, including his http://www.bloomingpassion.com/ website. Eric can't come close to growing P. parritae in his climate, with summer temps 90s/50s.

Sorry to be so thorough, but this is not a small problem. A huge amount of money is spent on plants (not just Passifloras) from the high elevations in the tropics that grow almost nowhere in the U.S. Unfortunately sellers tend to be the main source of information, often suggesting the reason such plants don't grow everywhere is because they are "rare". I'm selling at the moment, so I lose money when I publicize this. However I think it's inappropriate to profit off of others' ignorance.

That said, a huge number of amazing vines--including Passifloras--grow only in South Florida and not anywhere else, including "equivalent" zones in California. The same warm climate that makes P. parritae impossible also makes Jade Vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) possible in S. Florida but not here. There are many other examples, among them some of the most beautiful vines in the world. Hoyas are another example. As far as Passifloras, I suspect P. cirrhiflora would also grow outside, if you are looking for something rare, and orange. Price and availability are potential problems.

how do you order from Strybing Arboretum??

Strybing has sales: a big one in May and others once a month. More recently, they started daily sales at a shop at their main entrance (The Arbor). There's no way to order from them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sales at SF Botanical Garden (Strybing Arboretum)

aw that sucks! If anyone have cuttings or seeds they can sell please let me know i am in socal.

I am interested in seeds cutting from this passionflower and have lots of rare tropicals to swap Frank ;)

The problem with cuttings is that it's difficult to propagate, so that if they are sent through the mail, the chance of getting a plant out of it is remote--even by someone with advanced equipment for propagation. The one exception I know of is someone in CA who was sent cuttings and managed to root them with a university botanical garden's aeroponic propagator. I have a small plant, a seedling--bought at the SF Botanical Garden, no material for cuttings. Even at the SF Botanical Garden, they have not sold significant numbers of rooted cuttings for quite a while, due to problems rooting cuttings. I know that seeds sometimes appear on Ebay, but I don't know of other sources. In terms of making seeds--in general one needs two flowering clones. I don't know of this existing in the U.S. I think someone told me that after years of trying (and failing) it might be possible to produce seeds by self-pollination, but I need to confirm this.

The biggest consideration, though, is that most people simply cannot provide the climate conditions to grow and flower this plant. Basically--a cool spot near the California Coast, or a huge air-conditioned greenhouse, where it can be planted in the ground. Note that there are not people in other situations posting photos of blooming plants. This is in spite of the fact that a number of plants have been sold over the years on Ebay or through the SF Botanical Garden and UCBG, also briefly by Grassy Knoll Exotics.