chocolate vine

Photo: Unknown — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

⚠ Pulp sweet but INSIPID/variable. In Japan the bitter RIND — stuffed and fried — is the prized culinary part.

Hardiness

Zone 4–9

Habit

Vine

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Autumn (pods split open)

Mature size

Vigorous vine 8–10 m

Light

Full sun to partial — roots shaded, top in sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

East Asia — central China, Korea and Japan; woodland margins and thickets. ⚠ Invasive in the eastern United States, where it forms smothering mats.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

3–4 yrs

Growth speed

3–6 m/year — very fast, and capable of smothering supports and neighbouring shrubs.

Spacing

300 cm (118 in) apart — about 9 m² (97 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate and palmate with five oval leaflets 3–8 cm long, notched at the tip, on long slender stalks — the 'quinata' five-leaflet arrangement that names it.

Root system

Vigorous, fibrous and strongly suckering, spreading widely by underground runners and rooting wherever a trailing stem touches soil — the main reason it naturalises so aggressively where it has escaped.

Fruit description

Flattened sausage-shaped pods 6–10 cm long, ripening purple-violet and splitting open along one side to reveal a whitish, translucent, faintly sweet pulp studded with many small black seeds. The pulp is what is eaten; the mild rind is cooked as a vegetable in Japan.

Propagation

Semi-ripe cuttings in summer root readily, and layering is almost automatic since stems root on contact. Seed needs cold stratification and gives variable plants. ⚠ For fruit you must raise two genetically distinct plants — cuttings off one vine are a single clone and will never cross.

Pollination

⚠ SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — plant 2 genetically distinct vines

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.