One major downside to many of the most stunning garden plants is that they’re often toxic. Luckily, that’s generally not the case with the passionflower! But here’s the catch: just because it isn’t poisonous doesn’t mean you should start snacking on the fruit. Only a handful of species are actually tasty.
Which Passionflowers are Edible?
To get an idea of which ones are safe to eat, just think of the passion fruit (maracuya) you see at the grocery store—that’s actually the fruit of a specific passionflower species! You’ve probably enjoyed it in juices or tropical desserts. Besides the classic supermarket variety, there are a few other species that produce delicious fruit:
- P. edulis forma edulis (Purple Passion Fruit)
- P. edulis forma flavicarpa (Yellow Passion Fruit)
- P. ligularis (Sweet Granadilla)
- P. quadrangularis (Giant Granadilla)
- P. incarnata (Maypop)
- P. alata (Winged-stem Passionflower)
When to Skip the Snack
As you can see from that short list, only about one in every hundred of the 500+ passionflower species produces fruit worth eating. For the rest of them, I’d strongly suggest keeping them off your plate. While most aren’t technically toxic, they usually taste pretty terrible and just aren’t palatable. However, there is one major exception: the *Passiflora decloba* is actually toxic and should never be eaten. This goes for the main species as well as any of its hybrids.
Using Fruit for Seeds
Even if you can’t eat the fruit, letting those beautiful blooms develop into seed pods can still be useful if you’re looking to harvest seeds for new plants. Just a heads-up, though: growing them from seed is a bit of a project and doesn’t always work out perfectly. If you’re looking for a more reliable way to propagate your plants, using layers or cuttings is usually much easier. Plus, getting the fruit to develop in the first place often requires you to step in and do some hand-pollination yourself!
