OF THE GENUS ACTINIDIA. 395 
ибиз, the inflorescences are usually produced on the second year's growth, 
“which is sometimes a normal leafy branch, sometimes а special flower-bearing 
spur. The long arching shoots which appear during the spring and summer 
‘months give rise in the following year to secondary branches bearing leaves 
which are often strikingly different in shape and character from those on the 
primary stems—a point which will explain some anomalies in series of 
specimens in herbaria. The flowers are usually completely dioecious, and the 
‘male plants are considerably more common than the female. 
The uses of the Actinidias, as at present known, are few. The long tough 
‘stems of the climbing forms are, like so many lianes in countries devoid of 
‘cheap cordage, used for binding field and mountain produce both in Japan 
and China. The fruits, which in several species have a greenish pulp of 
pleasant acid taste, somewhat resembling that of gooseberries, are collected 
and eaten in many parts of those countries. 
History.—The specimens upon which the genus was founded were collected 
in Nepal in 1821 by Wallich, who attached to them his number 6634 and the 
following note :—“ Dilleniacearum ordinis? callosa, Wall. Trachytille, Dee. 
ulla affinitas?” Some of these specimens, which were in flower only, 
‘eventually came into the hands of Lindley and were recognised by him as 
separable from all genera then known by their climbing habit in conjunction 
with the peculiar radiating arrangement of their styles. He therefore 
described them * as a new genus of Dilleniaceæ in 1836 and chose for it the 
name Actinidia in consequence of the last-mentioned character f. It was 
about seven years later that Siebold and Zuccarini obtained abundant 
flowering and fruiting specimens of several apparently congenerie species of 
climbing Ternstroemiaceous shrubs from the mountains of South Japan. They 
had succulent fruit and conspicuously radiating styles. They were, in fact, 
Actinidias, but these authors, not suspecting that Lindley’s Indian genus of 
Dilleniaceæ had any connection with their plants, described them lin 1843 as 
five species of a new genus of Ternstremiac че, VIZ. Trochostigma $. As one 
of these proved to be a Schizandra and the remaining four were subsequently 
reduced to two, the genus now comprised three species. А fourth, discovered 
by Fortune in China, was described in 1847 by Planchon |, who at the same 
time declared the generie identity of Actinidia and Trochostigma. Scarcely 
two years, however, had elapsed after Planchon’s unification of the genus, 
when Gardner, with specimens of what is now known as Actinidia Championi, 
identified them Ч with a third genus in a third natural order, viz. with 
Heptaca, a doubtful Tiliaceous genus of Loureiro. ЈЕ is easy to understand 
how Gardner was led into this mistake when it is observed how very slightly 
* Introd. Nat. Syst. ed. 1. 439 (1856). T акте, а star. 
{ Abh. Akad. Wiss, Muench. iii. (1843) 726. $ rpoxós, а wheel. 
| Lond. Journ. Bot. vi. (1847) 302. $ Hooker’s Kew Journ. i. (1849) 293. 
2F2 
