chocolate vine

noun

: a woody perennial vine (Akebia quintata) of eastern Asia with palmate leaves of five leaflets, clusters of small, chocolate-scented, usually purplish flowers, and large sausage-shaped seed pods

Step through the arches of trailing chocolate vine … to take in all this location has to offer.

—Dennis Bartlow, Commercial-News (Danville, Illinois), 2 July 2010

called also fiveleaf akebia

Note: The chocolate vine has escaped cultivation and become an invasive plant in parts of the eastern U.S.

Word History

First Known Use

1989, in the meaning defined above

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