By Burt Glover

I wish I’d known more about the passionflower vine (Passiflora incarnata) when I was a young child. As it was, those vines seemed to grow everywhere. In late spring, the stunning, purple-fringed, multi-colored flowers would appear — a signal that school was about to let out for summer. I imagine that more than one school girl would pick the flowers of this vine, imagining their fringed petals to be a ballerina’s dress.

We boys would wait for the hollow, egg-shaped fruits to appear later in the summer. “Maypops,” we called them, and those green orbs did pop when thrown to the ground. They weren’t as much fun later in the summer as they ripened to a golden hue and got soft. “Maysplats” was probably a better description for them then. Not knowing if they were poisonous, none of us ever tried to eat one of them.

It turns out that maypops are quite edible. When ripe, the black seeds inside are surrounded by a yellow pulp. Eating these has been likened to eating a pomegranate. The fruit contains a goodly amount of vitamin C, as well as a fair amount of B vitamins and A. The flavor of the pulp is described as having a sweet/sour, tropical-type of taste — somewhat between that of an apricot and a guava. Early Americans used it to make jelly. There are different species of this vine, and I read that the fruit of an immediate cousin of it has been used as one of the flavorings in Hawaiian Punch. I also see that the seeds of our maypop are roasted and eaten as a snack in Puerto Rico. 

Returning to the flowers…. Passion flowers were named after the passion (latin Passio translates to “suffering”) of Christ. In this flower, many have found the symbols of the cross, the nails, the thorny crown and many others. Traditionally, the flowers were given as a charm to attract friendship and to bring peace. They were placed in homes to elicit harmony and lessen discord. I had to laugh when I read that many Southerners, in their true tradition, would batter the flowers and fry them up as fritters. 

The buds, leaves and flowers of passionflower have been utilized medically by native and subsequent American peoples for centuries, mostly for their calming and sedative effects. The passionflower also holds its place in the modern world. A number of bedtime tea blends contain passionflower herb, often in concert with other relaxing herbs, such as chamomile, valerian and lemon balm.

Brew up a tea, and settle into your remedy for those symptoms of  insomnia, stress, ADHD, PMS, pain, anxiety– so they say. The Europeans use our passionflower components extensively in many of their herbal remedies today. As with any medicinal, herbal or otherwise, it is imperative to learn the side effects and contraindications before taking. This is especially true for pregnant and nursing women.

If you decide that you simply must add this vine to your yard, keep in mind that it does spread rapidly through underground rhizomes and by seeds. The fruit that you eagerly await may disappear rapidly, because the wildlife in your area (deer, foxes, raccoons, possums…. 28 species in all) might possibly get to them first.

The leaves are especially favored by silver-dappled Gulf fritillary butterflies (sometimes called “passion butterflies:), the beautiful zebra longwing butterflies, and a few other others who count on the passionflower vine as their host plant.

You may even get a troupe of young girls picking the flowers to make pretend-ballerinas, or mischievous boys popping their fruits on the ground, or throwing them at each other like so many hand grenades. You just never know.

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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond