An Unexpected Exotic Fruit

This is an exotic fruit from a vine I planted around my porch. I didn't know when I planted it that it was special. A few years ago I purchased it at a nursery that has since gone out of business. I just liked the way it would climb up my porch.

After a few years, it began to produce fruit, I never knew it would produce anything but leaves and a nice smell. Then one day I was sitting on the porch enjoying my coffee and found something purple hanging from the vine. I thought it was fruit but didn't know if it was edible.

When I researched it I found that it was an exotic fruit-bearing vine from China, Japan or Taiwan. My next question was, "why did anything exotic end up in Longview, a tiny hamlet where there is nothing exotic.

Here is a picture of the vine and the fruit that came from it. It produced only one fruit last year and this year we have several on it.

We are planning on rebuilding the porch so I am hoping we can save this special vine. God provided something even better than I had been looking for when I was wanting a vine for my porch, I never expected it to get this large but was even happier when it produced this interesting fruit.