To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Akebia
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:16:11 -0500
I've had two Akebia vines for some years . They are two different
species, Akebia quinata and Akebia trifoliata, with five and three
leaflets per leaf respctively. Both grow vigorously without any care or
fertilizer and both produce lots of small purple flowers. Only the
quinata, however bears fruit, a dozen or so on the one vine. It looks
as if the trifoliata pollen works on the quinata but not vice versa. I
consider the fruit useless, except to show friends what an odd looking
thing it is and let them have a taste. The "edible" part is a clear
colorless gel studded with lots of hard round black seeds about 2
millimeters in diameter. The taste is about what you would expect from
gelled sugar water.