Chocolate Vine

Did you know

• The deep purple flowers smell exactly like vanilla-and-chocolate—a rich cocoa fragrance no other temperate climber can match, drifting through gardens in late April.
• Akebia produces one of the strangest fruits in the plant world—gray-purple sausage-like pods that split open at maturity to reveal a pearl-white sweet pulp filled with black seeds, eaten in Japan as a delicacy called 'mitsuba akebi.'
• The vine has palmate leaves divided into five leaflets like a hand—when they emerge in early spring, the foliage and stems are tinted bronze and purple like wine.
• In its native East Asia, akebia stems are still woven into traditional Japanese baskets and jars—the long, flexible vines are as supple as willow withes and last for centuries.
• Though beautiful, the vine has become invasive in parts of the southeastern U.S., where its evergreen habit and aggressive twining can smother smaller trees within a few years.

Color meanings

Uses

• Trellis vine
• Privacy screening
• Edible fruit
• Cottage gardens