The kiwifruit (or kiwi fruit or kiwi) is the edible fruit of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia. The most common cultivars of kiwifruit are oval, and about the size of a large hen's egg (5-8 cm long and 4.5-5.5 cm diameter). It has a fibrous, dull green-brown skin; the flesh is bright green or golden with rows of small, black, edible seeds. The texture of the fruit is soft and the flavour is sometimes described as a mix of strawberry, banana, and pineapple.
The fruit gets its name from a marketing strategy, naming it after the kiwi, the national bird of New Zealand, where the fruit was first commercially popularised in 1959 by the New Zealand fruit-and-vegetable export company Turners and Growers; previously it was known as the Chinese gooseberry, but due to the Cold War, the Chinese label seemed unfit for popularization of the fruit in Western countries. Growers gradually adopted the name and in 1974 the kiwifruit became the official trade name.
