CHINESE GOOSEBERRIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 146, 21 June 1923, Page 3

CHINESE GOOSEBERRIES.

At yesterday's meeting of the Acclimatisation Society (plants branch) some tine examples of Chinese gooseberries were exhibited. They were grown by Mr. Norman Gorton, at Feilding. The fruit grows on a quickly-growing vine, Aetinidia chinensis. and is about the size of a passion fruit or a small hen egg. It is not in any way related to the gooseberry. It gets that name from the gooseberry-like interior of the fruits. The taste is like that of a gooseberry and apple of good flavours mixed. The seed is very small, and arranged in a concentric brown layer around the centre about half-way between the skin and centre line. The skin is thin, the plant relying on short thin stiff hairs as a protection for its fruit stalks and leaves. The leaves are large, nearly circular, about 4in in diameter, and very beautiful.- The tree is deciduous, and the fruit develops fully just as the leaves fall, the abundant brown fruits giving the bare vine an odd appearance. The fruit makes splendid jam. It grows in central and north China, and would come to maturity in any part of New Zealand. Missionaries repeatedly. brought the plants to this country, but failed to get fruit. The reason for this was that the vine has male and female liowers on separate plants. There must be two plants together, or no fruit can be got. and it requires knowledge to distinguish the sexes. The short stiff hairs or bristles grow over all the male plant, but they are absent from the short stalk joining the leaf to the vine or twig on the female. In glowing plants from seed it lias been found that male plants are few compared with female seedlings. There may be fifteen or seventeen females to one male. The vine quickly covers rocks, clay banks, or fences. it is a valuable plant, and should be extensively grown in New Zealand.