Species
+

Akebia quinata (Houtt.) Decne.

Akebia, Akébie à cinq feuilles, Chocolate Vine, Chocolate vine (EN)

Climate known 64 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Akebia quinata –commonly known as akebi (木通), chocolate vine, five-leaf chocolate vine, or five-leaf akebia– is a vine that is native to Japan, China and Korea, commonly used as an ornamental or edible plant in the United States and Europe. In its native habitat, it is often found on hills, in hedges, on trees, along forest edges and streams, and on mountainous slopes.

Text from Wikipedia, “Akebia quinata”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Akebia

Akebia is a genus of five species of flowering plant, within the family Lardizabalaceae.

Text from Wikipedia, “Akebia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Lardizabalaceae
Described by
(Houtt.) Decne.
Native to
China South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast +2
Wild records
1168 in range· 586 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1533mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 285 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1533 mm a year, wettest July at 285 mm, driest December at 39 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Akebia micrantha Nakai; Akebia quinata (Houtt.) Dcne.; Akebia quinata f. albiflora Y.N.Lee; Akebia quinata f. polyphylla (Nakai) Hiyama; Akebia quinata f. viridiflora Makino and 5 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1166 mm of 1533 mm) falls in April to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.2 °C against a yearly mean of 13.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1533 mm a year, wettest July at 285 mm, driest December at 39 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1533 mm a year at the habitat, 1166 mm of it April to September. Wettest month July at 285 mm, driest December at 39 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1257 mm to 2399 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -5.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -5.7 °C, the absolute minimum -10.9 °C, about 91 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells -9.0 °C to 3.0 °C), warmest day 27.7 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 4 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from -3 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1533 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 887 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -10.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost32.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)-10.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 15–36RH 56–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 887 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C4 / 0–85 / 3–910 / 7–1216 / 12–1821 / 17–2324 / 21–2727 / 24–2928 / 26–3024 / 22–2619 / 16–2112 / 10–167 / 3–11
Night °C-3 / -9–3-2 / -7–31 / -2–67 / 4–1112 / 9–1517 / 14–1921 / 18–2322 / 19–2418 / 15–2111 / 8–165 / 1–10-0 / -5–5
Rain mm44 / 24–9654 / 28–11490 / 49–176111 / 71–185129 / 92–213187 / 137–293285 / 163–392261 / 145–348193 / 146–29476 / 48–19864 / 42–13139 / 21–82
DLI17 / 15–1922 / 20–2428 / 25–3034 / 31–3636 / 32–3734 / 29–3630 / 28–3431 / 28–3426 / 24–2824 / 19–2517 / 16–1915 / 13–17
RH %57 / 54–6256 / 54–6157 / 55–6158 / 54–6160 / 56–6464 / 59–6967 / 64–7266 / 63–6963 / 61–6759 / 57–6358 / 55–6257 / 54–61

Each figure is the median across the 887 grid cells holding the 1149 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1089:6384 (35.525, 139.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -10.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 887 distinct grid cells holding the 1149 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1089:6384 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.50_139.375, lapse-corrected +146 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 379 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea· introduced: Austria, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia
Kew's description“liana” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker36.495, 127.315 · in the densest population, 441 records (38% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1168 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 586 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1082 km away. 536 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 19 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1168 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Akebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinataAkebia quinata

Photographs: (c) Stephen Thorpe, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0 (4).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Akebia quinata, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Saponins as cytotoxic agents: a review
Irma Podolak, Agnieszka Galanty, Danuta Sobolewska (2010) · Phytochemistry Reviews
Recent advances in research on lignans and neolignans
Rémy Bertrand Teponno, Souvik Kusari, Michael Spiteller (2016) · Natural Product Reports
Fleshy Fruit Expansion and Ripening Are Regulated by the Tomato SHATTERPROOF Gene TAGL1
Julia Vrebalov, Irvin L. Pan, Antonio J. Matas, Ryan P. McQuinn (2009) · The Plant Cell
Health Benefits and Pharmacological Properties of Stigmasterol
Saad Bakrim, Nesrine Benkhaira, Ilhame Bourais, Taoufiq Benali (2022) · Antioxidants
Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of selected Chinese medicinal plants and their relation with antioxidant content
Anjaneya S. Ravipati, Lin Zhang, Sundar Rao Koyyalamudi, Sang Chul Jeong (2012) · BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Antagonistic Yeasts: A Promising Alternative to Chemical Fungicides for Controlling Postharvest Decay of Fruit
Xiaokang Zhang, Boqiang Li, Zhanquan Zhang, Yong Chen (2020) · Journal of Fungi
Ethnobotanical study on medicinal plants used by Maonan people in China
Liya Hong, Zhiyong Guo, Kunhui Huang, Shanjun Wei (2015) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 146 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.