United States / Grow / chocolate vine

chocolate vine (Akebia quinata)
Photo: (c) Stephen Thorpe, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

chocolate vine

Akebia quinata · Lardizabalaceae · also called Five-leaf akebia · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Five-leaf akebia carries an avoid result in the evidence table. The only directional source calls Akebia quinata not Firewise and also notes that it can be invasive.

A separate ecological report describes the plant as widespread-invasive, while range evidence preserves its introduced occurrence trail. Those status records remain distinct from the fire verdict, which comes from the only directional row in the accepted pack.

The single source leaves the page limited evidence. An uncertain hardiness minimum of 6 is kept in hardiness evidence, and related plants provide same-form alternatives without transferring the avoid direction.

Fire-resistant vines instead

Form
vine
Mature height
~50 ft
Light
Full sun
Rated in
eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
eastern US

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CT, DC, DE, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MO, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, VA, WV.
Introduced / established
16 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

0

exact source areas

Current introduced

16

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

16 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Fire-resistant vines instead

Fire-resistant vines listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Akebia quinata (Five-leaf akebia). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/akebia-quinata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.