I still have vivid memories of the expanses of Passiflora coccinea that I encountered in the clearings of the forest of French Guiana. They spread for tens of metres, a dense weave of deep green leaves from which fiery red flowers emerged everywhere. They were flashes of colour glowing in the humid light of the forest.
Hilaire Annonay, who played a central role in the nomenclatural history of this species by having previously described it under the name Passiflora guyanensis, is a French professor from Martinique whom I had the pleasure of meeting many years ago in Nice. His sunlit terrace, crowded with pots, was a small tropical haven filled with rare passiflora, many of which I had never seen before at the time. He spoke of his expeditions into the forest, among jaguars and snakes, and of his dream of reaching the most inaccessible areas of Guyana by helicopter. Perhaps he truly did.
Hilaire is also the author of two other important species: Passiflora cerasina (1997) and Passiflora aimae (1998).
As for the name, I admit that for a long time I remained uncertain about which one to adopt. The species from Guiana was for many years referred to as Passiflora coccinea, but over time this name came to include morphologically different plants, some of them originating from Brazil. This overlap led to a confusion that persisted for decades, particularly within European collections.
In order to clarify the situation, John Vanderplank proposed reserving the name Passiflora coccinea for the species described by Aublet from the Guianas and using the name Passiflora miniata for the Brazilian plant that had long been cultivated in Europe under that name. However, two years earlier Hilaire Annonay had already published the description of Passiflora guyanensis, which according to Vanderplank corresponds precisely to Aublet’s Passiflora coccinea.
The matter is not entirely settled. In his most recent update, Yero Kuethe, in the 2024 List of recognized species of Passiflora, considers three names to be valid and distinct:
Passiflora coccinea Aublet (1775),
Passiflora guyanensis Annonay (2004),
Passiflora miniata Vanderplank (2006).
I also consulted Killip’s work, The American Species of Passifloraceae published in 1938, and indeed Aublet places Passiflora coccinea in the Guianas, where this species occurs. However, under the same name he also includes the plant now known as Passiflora miniata, distributed in Brazil, Peru and Bolivia. This confirms that the confusion arose after the original description, making Vanderplank’s intervention necessary in order to restore a clearer distinction.
Passiflora coccinea grows in the humid areas of the tropical forest of French Guiana, often in clearings where it can spread with great vigour. It forms extensive green carpets that climb over the surrounding vegetation. The leaves are entire, bright green and coriaceous, glossy on the upper surface and paler beneath.
The flowers, large and of a uniform scarlet red, are among the most striking within the genus Passiflora. Enclosed by three large red bracts, they open singly at the node of the stem, with sepals and petals similar in shape and colour. The sepals are aristate, with a slender and elongated apex. The corona consists of a single series of short filaments, pinkish white in colour, surrounding the erect androgynophore. The flower is very similar to that of the species long cultivated in Europe under the name Passiflora coccinea, but it shows greater vegetative vigour and a more intense and uniform coloration, with fleshy petals of a continuous red.
The fruit is oval, yellow orange at maturity, with evident vertical dark green stripes. In habitat, flowering and fruiting follow one another for much of the year, favoured by the constant humidity of the equatorial climate.
I am not aware of any experiences of cultivation in Europe. It is likely that its climatic requirements would allow growth and flowering only in warm and humid glasshouses, conditions that are difficult to reproduce in an amateur setting.
