Photo: Groogle, CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Purple Coral Pea

Hardenbergia violacea

Also known as Happy Wanderer, False Sarsaparilla, Native Sarsaparilla, Native Lilac, Vine Lilac

At a glance

Family

Fabaceae (the pea and legume family)

Type

Woody, twining evergreen climbing vine (also sold as a spreading groundcover form)

Parts used

Leaves and flowers, mostly for ornamental and garden use rather than the kitchen or apothecary

Size

A vigorous climber reaching about 6 to 10 feet along a trellis or fence, or a low, tangled mat of 1 to 2 feet if left to sprawl

Bloom

Late winter into spring, when the vine drapes itself in short racemes of small, pea-shaped violet-purple flowers

Habitat

Native to the open forests, woodlands, and coastal scrub of eastern and southern Australia, where it scrambles up trees and over rocks

Acquisition

Grow or buy

This plant in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Fast, dense privacy screening

Draws native bees and birds

Thrives in poor, dry soil

Vivid late-winter color

Traditional uses

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Long before it became a nursery favorite, Purple Coral Pea scrambled quietly through the dry forests of eastern Australia, its curtains of violet flowers signaling the end of winter. Early European settlers, missing the comforts of home, took to calling it false sarsaparilla and steeped the leaves as a homemade tea when true sarsaparilla was scarce on the frontier, a humble bush substitute rather than a medicine chest staple. Its greater legacy has always been in the garden rather than the teacup, prized as a tough, undemanding vine that could soften a fence line or hold a bare slope where little else would take.

How to grow & use it

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Traditional remedies and step-by-step preparations, a complete growing guide, and how to harvest, dry, and store it, all unlocked with HerbLens Unlimited.

✦Remedies & preparations
✦ Growing guide
✦Harvest & storage

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Pairs well with

✦Kangaroo paw
✦Grevillea
✦Native correa

Substitutes

✦True sarsaparilla (Smilax species) for anyone seeking the flavor the settlers were chasing

Choose it when

“For the fence line that needs softening and the slope that needs holding, in a wash of violet.”

Did you know?

The widely sold cultivar called 'Happy Wanderer' is one of the most popular native climbers in Australian gardens, prized simply for how effortlessly it turns a bare fence into a wall of purple every spring.

Safety

No reliable food use beyond an informal historical leaf tea; the seeds and pods are not established as edible and should not be eaten, especially by children or pets.