This section is from the book "Handbook Of Hardy Trees, Shrubs, And Herbaceous Plants", by W. Botting Hemsley. Also available from Amazon: Handbook of hardy trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants.
A small genus of climbing shrubs with the leaves digitately 3- or 5-foliolate. Flowers few, in axillary racemes, violet-coloured, polygamous. Sepals 3. Petals none. Male flowers with 6 free stamens and a rudimentary ovary. Female flowers with 6 or 9 rudimentary stamens. Carpels 3 to 9, stigma peltate; seeds immersed in pulp. About four species, natives of Japan and China. The native name of the Japanese species.
1. A. quinata. - A pretty twining plant with the leaves on very slender petioles, and palmately divided into usually 5 distinct petiolulate oval or oblong emarginate leaflets, the basal pair smallest. Flowers small, purplish brown, very fragrant. A native of Japan, hardy in the south-western counties only.
 
Continue to: