Photo: Cillas — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Sweet-tasting purple-black pulp, but reports are mixed on the aftertaste — some sources describe it as pleasant, others as leaving an unpleasant, lingering bitterness even when the fruit is cooked. Grown at least as much for its evergreen foliage and fragrant spring flowers as for the fruit.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Vine
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Autumn (pods split)
- Mature size
- Evergreen twining vine 5–8 m; containerable with hard pruning
- Light
- Partial — roots shaded, top in sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0
- Environment
- Montane
- Native range
- Central and southern China, in montane woodland and thickets.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 3–4 yrs
- Growth speed
- 1–3 m/year — fast, evergreen, and needs solid support.
- Spacing
- 300 cm (118 in) apart — about 9 m² (97 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Evergreen, alternate and palmate, with leaflets constantly three in number — leathery, glossy dark green and 6–12 cm long.
- Root system
- Vigorous, fibrous and spreading, with stems rooting where they trail along the ground; less aggressively suckering than Akebia but still capable of covering a lot of ground.
- Fruit description
- Sausage-shaped fleshy pods 5–8 cm long, ripening purple to pinkish and splitting to reveal sweet whitish translucent pulp studded with black seeds.
- Propagation
- Semi-ripe cuttings in summer, or layering — the trailing stems root readily on contact. Seed is slow, best sown fresh, and can take up to 18 months to germinate.
- Pollination
- SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — plant 2 genetically distinct vines (a common failure)
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.
Growing guide
How it spreads. A vigorous, fast-growing evergreen climber (to roughly 7-8 m with a spread of several meters) that can outgrow its allotted support; monoecious flowers give way to fleshy, edible-pulped fruit whose seeds may be spread by birds.
Growing tips. Needs a sturdy support to twine on and requires little to no routine pruning beyond trimming after flowering to control size and shape; hardy without frost protection in most temperate climates but appreciates a sheltered spot out of cold, drying winds.
Grow journal
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