Hi Mark
A better link on my site would have been the one below which hopefully makes the sitution clear. To quote

''It is pretty clear that all (?) the plants being widely sold in USA as P.'Lavender Lady', for whatever historical reason, are P. 'Amethyst'. Both others and myself have grown both side by side and they are the same plant.''

The fertility differences are misleading - it is just that the same plant under different conditions can appear to be fertile or not.

So P. 'Lavender Lady' = P. 'Amethyst'

Also please read the link on that page to the 'Amethyst' Group paper by Les King.

Believe me Patrick has no interest in this as it has been done to death in the past. He did a number of P. amethystina and P. caerulea hybrids around that time including the lovely P. 'Blue Bouquet' which are very different from 'Amethyst'. We will never know how the confusion came about - I once had half a dozen different crosses which I knocked off the bathroom window ledge when I opened a window. So suddenly a great heap of plant pots and soil and half a dozen labels randonly scattered!

Myles Irvine

Here is a link that might be useful: Passiflora 'Amethyst'

Myles,

Has a plant that is well-documented to be P. 'Lavender Lady' ever born fruit/seed?

Hi Mark
Yes because it is 'Amethyst'! Well documented does not mean anything though. If you want to have a good look at this go to the the link below and enter amethyst into the search engine for old posts. The sterile suggestion came from Mark Cooper many years back and the info spread from my site - that info is now superceeded.
Myles

Here is a link that might be useful: Passiflora list

Myles,

You'll have to either elaborate or tell me which posts on Passiflora-l are the relevant ones.

The most relevant ones I found are:

One from Leslie King stating that P. 'Amethyst' "forms fruits when pollinated with P. caerulea with a success rate close to 100%" that contain "no more than 20 or so seeds" in his experience. I can quote this in its entirety if it's useful.

Another from Aaron Gilbert I'll just quote in it's entirety so I don't get it wrong. Hopefully this is OK (if not contact the GW administrators to delete):

'leslie - hello
the lavender lady here in california is sterile. p.caerulea pollen has
given me fruits on the lady. the fruits are mostly hollow, but usually
have 2,3 or 5 seeds that look like they might grow. i have not really
tried that hard to get them to grow, just throw them in the dirt at the
base of the vine. none have germinated. i was mostly fooling around
trying to get it to fruit and having fun. it would be pretty hard to
improve this great plant. most of the time even when the flowers were
successfully pollinated they aborted in about a week. last season i
seem to remember that i had the best luck by opening up the lady's
flowers early and dusting them with the caerulea pollen. must of tried
maybe 10-15 flowers to get 3 fruits.
~aaron

Of course there are all sorts of caveats associated with those--different people doing the pollination, different strains of P. caerulea most likely, different climate, etc... Maybe there was a followup to this I didn't find?

It does suggest that at least the 'Lavender Lady' that Aaron has/had can form fruit. Does this mean that it is the same clone? From the info I found (and a friend on this forum couldn't find anything else) the evidence that the pollination behavior the same is lacking.

You mention above that Lavender Lady and Amethyst appear to be the same grown side by side (I believe this is also in the Amethyst Group paper mentioned above.). When these plants were grown side by side, where they tested for ability to form fruit when pollinated with P. caerulea? Different behavior would suggest a different clone and this would have been a good opportunity to test the idea.

I would emphasize, though, that even identical growth, appearance and pollination behavior does not prove that it is the same clone. That would have to be settled by some sort of molecular test.

I'm curious though, Myles: you suggest that Patrick Worley somehow got a cutting of Amethyst confused with his hybrids. Do hybridizers normally take cuttings of plants before they bloom, or are you suggesting that Worley confused a cutting with (most likely) a seedling of one of his crosses? Cuttings of Lavender Lady/Amethyst can bloom very young. Is it easy for a hybridizer to tell apart a rooted cutting and a seedling?

Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Mark
I know that this is a new topic to you and so of interest but it has all been done to death ten years ago. I cannot answer all your questions but I know that the germans have done some very thorough work on this including rediscovering P. kermesina in the wild.
Aaron says that 'Lavender Lady' is sterile yet he says it sets fruit with seed! So we have two plants that look identical and can both set fruit with seed. Google Lavender Lady/Amethyst and you will see that it is now widely accepted that they are the same hybrid. The same clones will behave very differently depending on many variables but I would say that tiny cuttings of the hybrid will flower. Another source of confusion is that the same hybrid can look very different when photographed by various people.
Re Patrick Worley (one of the great hybridizers) he cannot have created a plant apparently identical to 'Amethyst' as P. kermesina was not in captivity at that time. What actually happened we will never know.
If you want more information I suggest that you contact Dr Les King the Cultivar Registrar.
Myles