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Actinidia
Also called Kiwi Fruit
Actinidia is a genus of mostly dioecious woody vines and shrubs from temperate eastern Asia, including the kiwifruit (A. chinensis) and hardy kiwi (A. arguta). Commonly grown members are fruiting vines needing a sturdy support, male and female plants for fruit, and a cool winter.
Actinidia is a genus of woody and, with a few exceptions, dioecious plants native to temperate eastern Asia, occurring throughout most of China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, and extending north to southern areas of Russian Far East and south into Indochina. The genus includes shrubs growing to 6 metres (20 feet) tall, and vigorous, strong-growing vines, growing up to 30 m (100 ft) in tree canopies. They mostly tolerate temperatures down to around −15 °C (5 °F), and some are much hardier.
The leaves are alternate and simple, with a dentated margin and a long petiole. The flowers are solitary or in axillary cymes, usually white, with five small petals. Most of the species are dioecious with separate male and female plants, but some are monoecious. The fruit is a large berry containing numerous small seeds; in most species, the fruit is edible.
Actinidia species are commonly found in south-western China, though they range from Siberia to Indonesia. The greatest number of taxa found in the wild are in the Yunnan province, where almost half of the known species are endemic to Yunnan. Other provinces of China with significant populations of wild Actinidia include Guanxi, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hubei and Fujian. Fossils of the extinct species A. faveolata are known from Europe and Western Siberia extending from the Upper Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene, suggesting that the genus was previously more wide-spread across the world.
Kiwifruit is a cultivar group of A. chinesis, and hardy kiwi is the species Actinidia arguta, which has small fruit weighing 10–15 g (0.35–0.53 oz), with green edible skins and green flesh; it is hardier than A. chinensis. Some species are grown as ornamental plants, notably A. kolomikta.
Tara vine · Actinidia callosa · Gooseberry Chinese · Actinidia chinensis var. setosa · Kiwi · Actinidia chrysantha · Velvetvine · Actinidia henryi · Arctic Beauty · Actinidia laevissima · Actinidia latifolia · Actinidia macrosperma
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Actinidia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
