Wild apricot noun A tall vine (Passiflora incarnata) having large, flesh-colored flowers and smooth, yellow fruit. Same as maypop, passion flower. [1913 Morely Carolina Mts 68 In some parts of the mountains the people call the maypops “apricots” and eat them, though they belong principally to the age of childhood.] 1937 Thornborough Great Smoky Mts 22-23 The strange, symbolic purple passion flower, the former state flower of Tennessee grows in profusion and its fruit is prized by the mountain children who call it wild apricot. 1970 Campbell et al. Smoky Mt Wildflowers 66 Also known as wild apricot and maypop, [the passion flower] is a vine up to ten feet in length. [1971 Krochmal et al. Medicinal Plants Appal This plant…has been used to reduce blood pressure and to increase the rate of respiration.] 1982 Stupka Wildflowers 69 The fruit is a many-seeded berry the shape of a lemon. When ripe it is yellow and edible. The fruit accounts for the alternate names “wild apricot” and “maypop.” 1996 Montgomery Coll. = passion flower, the fruit of which was sometimes made into preserves (Cardwell).
—Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
We have more maypops than ever this year. They grow along one side of an arch in the backyard. The arch also has malabar spinach growing on it.
The plant is so prolific that we usually pull up most of the plants leaving only a few vines. This year we let them grow where they would and only pulled up the ones that escaped the area.
Maypops grow wild throughout the southern Appalachian mountains. They are best harvested when the outer shell begins to fade in color and become wrinkled and soft. The fruit is easily harvested and is often eaten right where it grows by opening the hull and scooping out the sweet tart goodness. The pulp and seeds are both edible, although the seeds are rather crunchy. Young children in Appalachia have been known to stomp unripened fruit to hear the popping sound the it makes as it bursts.
Katie loves to eat them more than the rest of us and one year she made jelly that was really good.
A quick tea can be made by scooping out pulp from ripe fruit and cooking in water for about five minutes or so. Strain and sweeten to taste.
Last summer Corie and I attended a lecture on medicinal plants of Southern Appalachia. Maypop was one of the plants highlighted for it’s calming effect.
Maypop is the most common name for the fruit in the mountains of Appalachia. I’m partial to the wild apricot name noted in the dictionary entry because Pap used it. He had fond memories of eating the fruit when he was a boy.
Last night’s video: I’m Wore Out Thinking For Him At Every Turn – From My Highest Hill 9.
Tipper
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