Kiwifruit since around 1966, when the fruit was first exported from New Zealand to the United States. Kiwifruit has since become a common name for all commercially grown green kiwifruit from the genus "Actinidia". In New Zealand, the shortened word "kiwi" is never used to refer to the fruit, as it usually either refers to the kiwi bird or is a nickname for New Zealanders. Early varieties were described in a 1904 nurseryman's catalogue as having "...edible fruits the size of walnuts, and the flavour of ripe gooseberries", leading to the name "Chinese gooseberry". In 1962, New Zealand growers began calling
Gooseberry and western Asia, growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower country, from France eastward, well into the Himalayas and peninsular India. In Britain, it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but the gooseberry has been cultivated for so long that it is difficult to distinguish wild bushes from feral ones, or to determine where the gooseberry fits into the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with