Passiflora antioquiensis | The Italian Collection of Maurizio Vecchia

DESCRIPTION:

It is one of the most important and appreciated passionflowers belonging to supersection Tacsonia.  P. antioquiensis and some of its hybrids, due to their beauty and hardiness, are widespread in areas with a mild climate, in particular Liguria and southern Italy.

It is admired above all for the elegance of its flowers, with their particular intense pink colour. It can cover fences and pergolas for more than 5 metres; it has a generous and prolonged flowering and produces excellent fruit. It adapts to living and flowering in even small pots, demonstrating remarkable adaptability qualities, so much so that it can adapt to life as a houseplant.

It comes from the Andes of Columbia where it grows at an altitude of 2000 to 3000 metres. For this reason, it prefers summers and winters that are mitigated by the sea. In contrast, it does poorly in more torrid climates, where it is advisable to keep it in the shade of a tree to protect it from excessive heat.

It has thin, slightly tomentose stems, trilobate leaves, with tightly serrated margins, and thin, pointed lobes up to 12 cm long. The petiole bears glands of variable number. The flowers are supported by incredible long petioles, usually 50-60 cm but which, in some varieties, can exceed one metre in length. Thus the flower hangs as if by a thin thread, swaying at the slightest breath of wind.

The Tacsonia subgenus has a characteristically longer calyx than that of the others and a very prominent androgynophore. In fact, the flower of P. antioquiensis is made up of the tubular calyx of 4-5 cm long (from which the androgynophore protrudes by 5-6 cm) and the corolla with a diameter of about 10 cm. The slender, pointed sepals and petals open radially, their bright pink contrasting with the dark green of the leaves to create a strikingly aesthetic effect. The corona is made up of 3 series of violet-coloured filaments, so small and short as to be almost invisible.

The fruits are very elongated and ovoid in shape. They turn yellow when ripe and contain a fragrant and sweet gelatinous pulp, so much so that this passionflower is also industrially cultivated for its fruits.

It prefers a loose, almost sandy soil. In fact, it suffers from root necrosis if it is watered too much without sufficient drainage. For this reason, it may suddenly wilt on the hottest days, the result of fungal diseases having compromised the root system.

It propagates easily both from cuttings and from seed.