Passiflora ligularis

Passiflora ligularis, commonly known as the sweet granadilla or grenadia, is a plant species in the genus Passiflora. It is known as granadilla in Bolivia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, The Azores, South Africa, and Peru, granadilla común in Guatemala, granadilla de China or parcha dulce in Venezuela, and granaditta in Jamaica.

Sweet granadilla
Passiflora ligularis in flower
Passiflora ligularis fruits
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Rosids
Order:	Malpighiales
Family:	Passifloraceae
Genus:	Passiflora
Species:	P. ligularis
Binomial name
Passiflora ligularis Juss.

The seed of a sweet granadilla

Description

The epithet ligularis comes from the plant's ligulate corollae. It is native to the Andes Mountains, mainly Peru, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. It grows as far south as northern Argentina and as far north as Mexico. Outside of its native range it grows in the tropical mountains of Africa and Australia (where they are known as passionfruit or Granadilla), and is now common in local markets of Papua New Guinea, where it is known as 'sugar fruit'. It likes climates ranging from 15 to 18 °C (59 to 64 °F) and between 600 and 1,000 millimetres (24 and 39 in) of annual rain. It lives at altitudes ranging from 1,700 to 2,600 metres (5,600 to 8,500 ft) above sea level.

Grenadias have abundant, simple leaves and greenish-white flowers. The fruit is orange to yellow colored with small light markings. It has a round shape with a tip ending in the stem. The fruit is between 6.5 and 8 centimetres (2+1⁄2 and 3+1⁄4 in) long and between 5.1 and 7 centimetres (2 and 2+3⁄4 in) in diameter. The outer shell is hard and slippery, and has soft padding on the interior to protect the seeds. The seeds, which are hard and black, are surrounded by a gelatinous sphere of translucent pulp. The pulp is the edible part of the fruit and has a soft sweet taste. It is very aromatic and contains vitamins A, C, and K, phosphorus, iron, and calcium. The main producers are Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil (where it is known as maracujá doce or "sweet passion fruit"), South Africa, Rwanda, and Kenya. The main importers are the United States, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain.

Passiflora ligularis, is an evergreen climbing shrub, producing stems of up to 5 metres (16 ft) long. The stems scramble over the ground or clamber into the surrounding vegetation, attaching themselves by means of coiling tendrils.

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  Leaves
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  Green fruit
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  Fruits hanging from vine
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  Seedling
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  Year-old seedling

External links

Media related to Passiflora ligularis at Wikimedia Commons

• sweet granadilla image from Mundani Botanical Garden
• Dressler, S.; Schmidt, M. & Zizka, G. (2014). "Passiflora ligularis". African plants – a Photo Guide. Frankfurt/Main: Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg.