Lardizabala (Lardizabalaceae)

funaria

This is the genus that lends its name to the entire family of wonderfully ornamental scented climbers which bear edible sausage-shaped fruit as well as the couple of shrubs also renowned for their colourful fruit. An evergreen woody-stemmed twinning climber with normally thick textured biternate leaves (hence its old name of ternata). Bearing dark purple male flowers in pendant racemes with larger female flowers of a similar colour held singly, resulting in normally three sausage-shaped lumpy fruit connected at their base. Best cultivated in a warm sheltered site out of severe frosts in a moisture retentive drained soil that does not dry out, flowering and fruiting best in sun. Two clones are required to produce fruit. Hardy to an occasional frost of -10C.