You are here
Plants
Passiflora
EOL Text
Passiflora
Herbaceous or woody vines that climb by means of axillary tendrils. Leaves alternate, simple, entire or palmately lobed; petioles usually with extrafloral nectaries; stipules usually small and deciduous. Flowers usually large and showy, bisexual or less frequently unisexual, actinomorphic, produced in axillary cymes or solitary, sometimes covered at the base by an involucre of foliaceous bracts; hypanthium short or tubular; calyx of (3-)5(-8) sepals, free or connate at the base. Petals as numerous as the sepals, alternating with them, rarely absent; corona of 1 or several whorls of free or connate appendages; stamens (4)5, the filaments free or on a stipe (androgynophore), the anthers dehiscent by longitudinal valves; ovary superior, usually on a gynophore, or rarely sessile, unilocular, with (2)3(-5) carpels, the placentation parietal, with numerous ovules, the styles 3, free or connate at the base, the stigmas capitate or oblanceolate. Fruit a berry or less frequently a capsule. A genus of 400 species, 350 of these native to tropical America, the rest to the paleotropics.
Depth range based on 6 specimens in 2 taxa.
Environmental ranges
Depth range (m): 0.5 - 0.5
Note: this information has not been validated. Check this *note*. Your feedback is most welcome.
License | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Ocean Biogeographic Information System |
Source | http://www.iobis.org/mapper/?taxon_id=793447 |
Foodplant / pathogen
Florida Passion Flower virus infects and damages stunted plant of Passiflora
In Great Britain and/or Ireland:
Foodplant / saprobe
gregarious, immersed then erumpent pycnidium of Macrophoma coelomycetous anamorph of Macrophoma passifloricola is saprobic on dead stem of Passiflora
Remarks: season: 5
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | BioImages, BioImages - the Virtual Fieldguide (UK) |
Source | http://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/Passiflora.htm |
Modified leaves assist climb: passion flower
Vetches and passion flowers climb other plants with the help of leaves modified into tendrils.
"Vetches and passion flowers have modified some of their leaves even more extremely and converted them into tendrils. These grope around in space until they touch the stem of another and swiftly coil around it." (Attenborough 1995:161-162)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
- Attenborough, D. 1995. The Private Life of Plants: A Natural History of Plant Behavior. London: BBC Books. 320 p.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/bc829dddbf6b0dea199b5e47bcd0109d |
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) Stats
Specimen Records:354
Specimens with Sequences:386
Specimens with Barcodes:344
Species:137
Species With Barcodes:134
Public Records:282
Public Species:129
Public BINs:0
Collection Sites: world map showing specimen collection locations for Passiflora
Herbaceous or woody, perennial (rarely annual or with annual shoots from perennial roots), tendril-climbing vines or lianas, rarely shrubs or small trees lacking tendrils; usually containing cyanogenic glycosides having a cyclopentenoid ring system; glabrous to densely pubescent with simple trichomes, rarely gland-headed. Stems terete to lobed or sharply angled, occasionally with anomalous secondary growth, the shoot apex erect to cernuous. Leaves alternate (very rarely subopposite to opposite), simple (rarely palmately compound), petiolate, often with variously shaped and positioned extrafloral nectary glands on the petiole; laminas unlobed or lobed, often heteroblastic, pinnately to often palmately (rarely pedately) veined, variegated or not, entire to serrate, peltate or not, often bearing small nectaries associated with marginal teeth or indentations, or abaxially submarginal, or abaxial between the major veins. Stipules setaceous or narrowly triangular to foliaceous, persistent or early deciduous, entire to serrate, sometimes the margins with glands, occasionally cleft. Tendrils axillary, simple (rarely compound), representing a modified flower stalk of the central part of the inflorescence, straight, curved, or circinate during development at the shoot apex, rarely with adhesive terminal disks. Inflorescences axillary, bracteate or rarely ebracteate, cymose, the central pedicel developed into a tendril, the peduncle very reduced or usually absent, the pedicels then arising collateral to the tendril (sometimes aborted), solitary or paired; secondary inflorescences may be present as condensed axillary or terminal shoots, determinate or rarely indeterminate; pedicels articulate distal to bracts, the distal portion called the floral stipe; bracts setaceous and scattered to foliaceous or pinnatifid and involucrate, occasionally glandular at margin. Flowers bisexual (sometimes functionally staminate), actinomorphic or rarely the reproductive parts zygomorphic; hypanthium ± flat to campanulate, occasionally the perianth basally connate/adnate into a floral tube; sepals 5 (very rarely 8), quincuncially imbricated (rarely non-overlapping) in the bud, occasionally carinate, sometimes with a subapical projection; petals 5 (very rarely 8) or sometimes wanting, quincuncially imbricated (rarely non-overlapping) in the bud, the same length as or shorter (rarely slightly longer) than the sepals; corona present at the base of the calyx or corolla or adnate to the inside of the floral tube, in 1 to many series of distinct to occasionally connate, short to elongate, often showy filaments or outgrowths, sometimes membranous, the innermost series, called the operculum, often connate at least basally, frequently membranous and shielding the nectary; the limen (extrastaminal nectariferous disk) present as a ring or cup around base of androgynophore (or rarely the ovary if androgynophore absent), or discoid or conical and adnate to the floor of hypanthium. Stamens 5(8 in one species), usually alternate with the petals, borne on an often elongate androgynophore or androgynophore rarely absent; filaments free just below ovary or rarely connate into a tube around ovary; anthers introrse in bud, moving to become extrorse (rarely latrorse) at anthesis, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing longitudinally, borne parallel or perpendicular to their filaments; pollen binucleate, 3- to 12-colporate. Carpels 3(-5), connate, ovary superior, unilocular, borne on an often elongate androgynophore (rarely sessile), placentation parietal, anatropous ovules numerous on each placenta; styles distinct, rarely connate near base; stigmas capitate, clavate, reniform, or occasionally bilobed. Fruit a few to many seeded berry, rarely a loculicidal or anomalously dehiscent capsule. Seeds arillate, usually flattened, the testa pitted, reticulate-foveate, or transversely grooved or sulcate; endosperm slightly ruminate, oily, abundant; embryo straight, the cotyledons usually elliptic to oblong-elliptic; germination epigeal (rarely hypogeal). Chromosome numbers: n = 6, 9, 10, 12 (rarely 7, 11, 18, 42).
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | Kristen Porter-Utley, PhytoKeys |
Source | http://phytokeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=4224 |
Leaf: Macerated leaves are used as an emollient by the Guyana Patamona.
Guyana Patamona: man-bi-du-na-yik.