Actinidia chinensis Planch.

Climbing shrubs, large, deciduous. Branchlets reddish, with paler oblong lenticels, young branchlets white pubescent to brownish long strigose or densely ferruginous hispid-setose; pith whitish to brown, large, lamellate. Petiole 3-6(-10) cm, white pubescent or brownish long strigose to densely ferruginous hispid-setose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, broadly ovate to broadly obovate or suborbicular, 6-17 × 7-15 cm, papery, abaxially whitish or brownish stellate tomentose, adaxially usually glabrous, occasionally ± puberulent, especially more densely so on midvein and lateral veins, or densely scabrid-hispid throughout, midvein and lateral veins conspicuous abaxially, subconspicuous adaxially, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, furcate above middle, veinlets in parallel cross-bars, conspicuous abaxially, base rounded to truncate to cordatulate, margin setose-serrulate with teeth terminating tips of veinlets, apex truncate to emarginate to abruptly cuspidate or shortly acuminate. Inflorescences cymose, 1-3-flowered, white silky-tomentose or yellowish brown velutinous; peduncles 0.7-1.5 cm; pedicels 0.9-1.5 cm; bracts linear, ca. 1 mm. Flowers orange-yellow. Sepals (3-)5(-7), broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, 6-10 mm, both surfaces densely yellowish tomentose. Petals (3-)5(-8), rarely with a second whorl of 2 smaller petals, broadly obovate, 1-2 cm, shortly clawed at base, rounded at apex. Filaments 5-10 mm; anthers yellow, oblong, 1.5-2 mm, sagittate at base or not, apex acute to rounded. Ovary globose, ca. 5 mm in diam., densely golden villous. Fruit subglobose to cylindric to obovoid or ellipsoidal, 4-6 cm, densely tomentose when young, glabrous when mature to densely hispid, with many brownish lenticels; persistent sepals reflexed. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep. 2n = 58*, 116*, 174*.

It is a temperate plant. Young shoots and fruit are damaged by frost. Plants have fruited at 1000 m altitude in equatorial regions. It grows naturally in China in thickets and oak forests on slopes or in ravines between 200-2300 metres altitude. It cannot tolerate wet soils. It needs shelter from wind and frost. It has a winter chilling requirement of 500-800 hours below 7°C. Fruit are smaller in shade. In Hobart Botanical gardens. It suits hardiness zones 7-10. In Sichuan and Yunnan.

The fruit is eaten raw. It can also be used in preserves and cooking. The leaves can be eaten cooked as an emergency food. The fruit is also made into jams and jellies.

It can be grown from seeds or cuttings but often plants of known quality and sex are grafted on. It needs a support to climb over. It needs regular pruning because fruit develop on the current year's growth. Plants or grafted branches of both sexes are needed. Male and female plants must be grown if seed is required. Plants can be grown from seed. Fresh seed germinates in 2-3 months at 10°C and stored seed can take longer. Seedlings should be transplanted out when 30 cm tall and after the last frosts. (Most seedlings are male.)