The purple is classic edulis--no way of telling which cultivar, sadly--while the red one is most likely a flavicarpa/edulis hybrid cultivar (Panama Red comes to mind, but there are lots of different ones). It's been my experience that seed from grocery fruit are easy to germinate. Edulis varities are pretty much the only ones we see in the U.S., as other species don't ship well.

I am sure jblaschke is right.
Pics in link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: P. edulis fruit

Thanks for the info and link. The fruit looked exactly like the edulis and edulis hybrid pics. The hybrid fruit was much better then the other. I eat passion fruit fairly often and don't know why I've never bothered saving the seeds.
Karyn

You have the coolest grocery stores! The stores here don't carry those neat things. I would love to find some like that. I am growing my first panama red, but it hasn't bloomed yet. I can't wait... Enjoy those and definitely plant the seeds. LOL

I'm just curious what parts of the country and in which stores people have been finding passionfruit. I've been looking in Northern California--unsuccessfully. Among the places I would think I might have some luck are the big Asian supermarkets, which have a lot of passionfruit products as well as an amazing diversity of produce. Nothing. What have people seen here or elsewhere in the country? Is it in season yet?

I used to notice them all the time several years ago, when I wasn't actually looking. Now the mainstream stores seem to have to scaled back their small collection of "unusual" fruits.

Harris Teeter carries them most of the time here in Nashville, but I have not seen them at any other supermarkets. Usually about $3 each.

H-E-B Central Market (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas...) carries purple edulis fruit, usually with a price around $2.50. They're imported from New Zealand. Randall's stores also carried them at one time, but I haven't been to a Randall's in years. I seem to recall Whole Foods having them on occasion as well.

Generally, it's the upscale stores that will have them, because of the cost per fruit.

I buy tropical fruit at the Korean superarket. I've even found fresh rhambutans and mangosteens amongst other things. The mainstream grocers like Safeway and Giant carry passion fruit, starfruit and some of the other more common tropical fruits but their prices are outrageous and the fruit is usually nasty and unripe.
Karyn

I had a lot of trouble finding passion fruit in the store (I've been trying for several weeks) so I figure some might be interested in my solution.

I tried the obvious candidates--Whole Foods, Asian supermarket, big grocery stores, specialty markets, etc. I asked at Whole Foods and they said they were out of season.

So I placed a question on Yahoo answers: "Where can I find fresh passion fruit near San Jose (Cupertino) California?" To my amazement, it worked, and someone knew of a market a few miles away that I had never even heard of (Cosentino's). I was shocked when I saw the price--$35 a pound--but I had my pick of a large number of what appeared to be high quality fruit. I bought one for $5 and it was quite good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Yahoo Answers