Passiflora caerulea

Raab-Straube, Eckhard von & Raus, Thomas, 2025, Euro + Med-Checklist Notulae, 18, Willdenowia 55 (1), pp. 107-144 : 128

Passiflora caerulea L.

A Cm: Crimea: Yalta urban district, Gurzuf, Skal’naya Str., 44°32'38"N, 34°16'53"E, 50 m, ditch below stone fence, in gaps between sandstone slabs, 5 Oct 2024, Yena & Efetov (CSAU). – Passiflora caerulea , a semi-evergreen perennial climber native to South America ( POWO 2024s), has been widely grown as an ornamental plant and become naturalized in regions with a suitable climate since Linnaean times. In Crimea, this plant is rarely cultivated in parks of the W part of the S coast (Crimean submediterranean). Sometimes the species is grown by citizens in their private gardens within the urban district of Yalta. Near such a garden in Gurzuf, we discovered 15 seedlings of P. caerulea growing right below a stone fence covered with the parent plant in full flower, c. 5 m from a clone of Parthenocissus tricuspidata (Siebold & Zucc.) Planch. The seedlings had green cotyledons and a few juvenile leaves. They were found only between the slabs made of sandstone but not on adjacent places of bare soil carrying several ornamental and ruderal annuals. The biggest seedling with partly dissected leaves and tendrils to 25 cm in length grew between the steps of a stone staircase (chasmophytic in a way). In Nikitskiy botanical garden (as in other places of its cultivation in Yalta), P. caerulea flowers and bears fruit every year ( Tolkachjova & al. 2017), but there has been no evidence of its escape from cultivation by sprouting seeds or vegetatively so far, although Bagrikova (2014) uncritically qualified P. caerulea as “alien established, but not invasive”. Up to now, the species has not been given for Crimea in principal world flora databases ( Jury 2009 +; GBIF 2023b; POWO 2024s).

A. V. Yena & K. A. Efetov