Growing most types of fruit from seed is generally a bad idea. There is a high chance the fruit will not be as good as the parent variety. For those of you who are not aware of how this works, in nature fruit species can have a lot of genetic diversity from generation to generation. When a good producing tree is found, it then gets propagated from cuttings. People usually do not want to take the trouble of growing a fruit tree from seed when they do not even know whether the fruit will be good. Generally though, lemons produce truer to seed than oranges do. Not talking about citrus here, but for fruit trees in general, it is theoretically possible to breed fruit that produces truer to seed, but it takes many more generations of breeding. These are often traditional heirloom varieties that have been around a long time. Whereas the seed from a Navel orange will not really result in a Navel variety, some of these heirloom varieties can essentially be continually propagated from seed. The terms "heirloom", "true to seed", and fruit "variety" can all be very relative and ambiguous terms.

GardnerDc, Where is there passionfruit at the local Stop/Shop? I thought Stop/Shops existed only in the Northeast. Have you seen any elsewhere? I'm usually grocery shopping over here on the MD side. What time of the year was it? I'm just over the border in MD. Having just spent a year in Australia, where they have many varieties of passionfruit, my son and I are craving them desperately. The canned syruppy stuff that I lugged back with us are NOT to be compared with the fresh fruit. I'm a newbie at all this gardening stuff. If I get a hold of some seed, can you tell me how you got it to germinate in your zone? Was it very involved? Did you try any winter sowing? I'm 6/7 MD. (I didn't think they'd grow here, but you've obviously been successful. I'll trade your germination tips for some yummy Aussie dessert recipes calling for passionfruit. They are also awesome just spooned out of their shells, a crunchy delight with an unmistakeable aroma! I don't know that I can stand to wait 2 years. I'd probably be more apt to buy the fruit if I can find it:) Meanwhile, I'll take a peek at that FL website mentioned above.

If there is any difference between the two varieties, then it is likely hybrid, you just do not realize it. It is very hard to tell anyhow. I believe most of the vegetables, like toms, beans, peppers, and many many others are hybrids. The production is so high. Growers can't make $ if they grow the low yield heirlooms. With this, sometimes the difference is small, sometimes it is big.... To a lot of people, we probably do not even care. I still have many named variety seeds. But sweet pepper is just sweet pepper....

I am a produce manager and I can tell you that the vast majority of the product we bring in does have the cultivars named on the shipping crates the fault if any would be at the growers end, we order say red plums, that day I might get 2 to 3 different cultivars on the same load they are only sold as red plums not as individual cultivars, the signage itself in store would be a nightmare, there maybe something they could do at the growers end printing on the plu stickers but, maybe that next delivery that certain cultivar is not available or they get a better buy on another, I would have customers turned off or disappointed in the fruit, I agree that it is frustrating, I have my own preference to certain cultivars, say when I get Robada apricots, that really is the only one I like and will buy myself, but I cannot order Robada apricots I can only order apricots and whatever variety that is available is the one I receive, I make cultivars known to my customers whenever possible, when we get a steady stream of that certain cultivar, but that could only be for a week or so at a time. Right now we have a promotion on pluots and are pushing three cultivars by name, this really is the first time we have separated cultivars on pluots, generally we order pluots and whatever variety is available at the time is what we get, could be dinosaur egg (dapple dandy), flavor supreme, fall flavor, flavor grenade or so on, if everything came with a cultivar listed there would be thousands of different signs and displays, so most is generalized, gala apples could haves a dozen different cultivars, broccoli the same, navel oranges, red green black grapes as well.