Actinidia deliciosa Cultivation spread from China in the early 20th century when seeds were introduced to New Zealand by Isabel Fraser, the principal of Wanganui Girls' College, who had been visiting mission schools in China. The seeds were planted in 1906 by a Wanganui nurseryman, Alexander Allison, with the vines first fruiting in 1910. People who tasted the fruit thought it had a gooseberry flavour, so began to call it the Chinese gooseberry, but being from the genus "Actinidia", it is not related to the gooseberry family, Grossulariaceae. The familiar cultivar "Actinidia deliciosa" 'Hayward' was developed by Hayward Wright in Avondale, New
Gooseberry introduction. Although usually placed as a subgenus within "Ribes", a few taxonomists treat "Grossularia" as a separate genus, although hybrids between gooseberry and blackcurrant (e.g., the jostaberry) are possible. The subgenus "Grossularia" differs somewhat from currants, chiefly in their spiny stems, and in that their flowers grow one to three together on short stems, not in racemes. It is one of several similar species in the subgenus "Grossularia"; for the other related species (e.g., North American gooseberry "Ribes hirtellum"), see the genus page "Ribes". The "goose" in "gooseberry" has usually been seen as a corruption of either the Dutch word