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Home>TRAILS>TREE TRAIL> Quick Notes about the Stauntonia Vine

The Stauntonia Vine

Quick Notes about the Stauntonia Vine Take me here now

From one side the vine almost hides the tree...
From one side the vine almost hides the tree...
From one side the vine almost hides the tree...
From one side the vine almost hides the tree...
...and from the other is a tangle of stems.
...and from the other is a tangle of stems.
...and from the other is a tangle of stems.
...and from the other is a tangle of stems.

The Facts

Tree Type: This is an evergreen vine which climbs up the trunk and branches of other plants and trees in order to reach the light. The tops of the vines push through the leaf canopy and spread out, forming a dense network of branches.

Location: This plant is native to Asia, and is best known in Japan. Since being transplanted to Europe, it has been grown in gardens all around the world.

Ecology: Once it is started, this vine can really take over its host tree as you can see from this example where the umbrella pine is almost covered.. It is covered in scented pretty white flowers with a purple tinge from April to June. In summer it produces a sweet purple fruit in the upper branches.

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The Legends

This vine is another of the plants that George Staunton introduced into Europe from his time in Asia (like the Kiwi Vine). The Japanese are particularly fond of the fruit, which have a clear pulp and a delicate flavour.

Because the edible fruit are dark and slightly elongated, this plant is sometimes called the ‘sausage vine’

In parts of India the vines are twisted into bangles and worn to cure orthopaedic problems with bones and muscles.

Make sure your volume is on: "Looks like a waterfall of green"

Show transcript

So we are standing on the lawn. This is the Stauntonia Vine. It looks like a waterfall of green! And it is using a pine and a couple of other little trees - some cherries - to grow up and it has kind of taken over. It has not killed the other trees but it is taking a lot of their light. As vines do...they use other trees to prop themselves up. Anything else, Scott?

It's called the Stauntonia because it is named after Sir George Staunton, the owner of Leigh Park Gardens - which is now Staunton Country Park. He was an avid plant collector and somebody brought it over for him and it was named 'Stauntonia'.

It's fruiting, but you need a male and a female, and we've only got the female. When it does fruit you get almost like passion fruits off of it. I don't know if they taste nice!

You can buy it commercially, as a plant to plant in your garden. It must be around 200 years old at least, if it was brought back for Staunton, it would be in that period. He was here how many, forty odd years. It's going to be one sixty, two hundred.

We've only got two in the park. The other one is on the farm side...it's quite small. This one is ginormous!

And this is about ten metres high by about six to eight metres wide. It has slowly spread over this small group of trees and even though it is cutting out the light for some of those trees, they are its structure, so we are going to leave it to do what it does best!

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