Apios americana

• 23 Sep, 2008
• 9 likes

I can do no better than quote the Crug Farm website (which is where I bought it) - "slender twining tuberous climber, from North America, to 1.5m. Once rivalling the potato as a root vegetable. Having soft pinnate foliage and bearing in late summer dense spikes of maroon/fawn curiously shaped pea-flowers. Any fertile soil growing into sun."
Planted it last September, cut it to ground level (by mistake) during the spring tidy-up and forgot all about it until last week. It has reached the top of a six foot trellis and the flowers are just opening - exquisite