Chocolate vine

What does it look like?

Chocolate vine leaves are made up of up to five oval leaflets arranged in a hand like shape. They grow on long stalks and have a purplish tinge when young, maturing to a blue green colour. The chocolate purple flowers hang in clusters and give off a vanilla or chocolate scent.

These flowers may be followed by purple violet, flattened, sausage shaped pods measuring around eight to nine centimetres long. Inside each pod is a whitish pulp that surrounds many tiny black seeds.

Why is it a problem?

Chocolate vine grows very quickly, producing dense, tangled mats that smother surrounding vegetation. It spreads mainly through stem fragments that readily take root, with human activity like soil movement and dumping garden waste contributing to its spread. Seeds can also be dispersed by birds that eat the fruit.

Once established, chocolate vine quickly outcompetes and kills herbs, seedlings, shrubs and young trees. Its dense growth prevents native plants from germinating and establishing. Where it doesn’t have support to climb, it forms a thick groundcover that smothers other vegetation.

Chocolate vine tolerates a wide range of conditions, including full sun to shade, drought, frost and many soil types, although it prefers moist, well drained soils in partial shade. It commonly establishes along roadsides, in scrub, forest margins and hedges.

Control methods

1. Dig out individual vines and hand pull seedlings (all year round). Remove the root system, dispose of material at refuse transfer station. Do not compost or leave in an area where they can take root again. Follow this up regularly until they are no seedlings rising.
2. Cut stems (spring-summer): cut at ground level, then repeat throughout growing season. Tie off hanging vines in the canopy so they cannot touch the ground and revegetate. Once growth has died back, dig out root systems and dispose of carefully to lined landfill. Repeat the process until all signs of regrowth have gone.
3. Overall spray large infestations (spring-summer) using knapsack spray with glyphosate (300ml/15L + penetrant) or triclopyr 600 EC (60ml/10L + penetrant).

CAUTION: When using any herbicide or pesticide, PLEASE READ THE LABEL THOROUGHLY to ensure that all instructions and directions for the purchase, use and storage of the product, are followed and adhered to.

Monitor the site and treat regrowth from roots and seedlings. Search out and remove the source of the infestation. Where appropriate replant the site with local native species.

Related links

 

NZPCN - akebia quinata

Weedbusters - chocolate vine