Schisandra

Schisandra chinensis

Schisandraceae

The five-flavor berry of Chinese tonic medicine — sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, and salty in one hanging cluster.

Culinary-tonic berry (wǔ wèi zǐ, five-flavor fruit). A sour-berry tea, not a candy.

Parts used: Ripe berry
Traditional notes: Fatigue · Dry cough folklore · Traditional astringent tonic · Restless overwork
Grow · USDA 6b: Woody vine, USDA 4–8 Named male and female, or a self-fertile cultivar. Seed needs cold. In work: Apr · May · Aug · Sep · Oct
Harvest: Ripe red clusters in late summer to autumn. Dry or freeze.

Two vines unless the tag says self-fertile. This is not a rumor.
A trellis or a small tree. It climbs.
Birds vote first. Net if you want the five flavors.

Safety

Acute feverish illness in some traditional systems Pregnancy without advice GERD if sour is a problem

Lore

Wǔ wèi zǐ means five-flavor fruit, and the Chinese materia medica treats the berry as a gatherer of scattered qi. Hunters in the taiga were said to carry it against fatigue. Soviet researchers later studied it as they did eleuthero — another cold-forest tonic that arrived in the West with a lab coat over an old name.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.