E. H. Wilson, Yichang, and the Kiwifruit

E. H. Wilson, Yichang, A. R. Ferguson and the Kiwifruit The fruits are rounded to oval 1’/z-2 inches long, acres in New Zealand, and that area is in- russet-colored and more or less The skin of the hairy. creasing by 3000 to 4000 acres annually. It is fruit is very thm and the flesh is green, sweet and pleas- estimated that there are now over 6000 acres ant to the palate and is excellent for dessert or for mak- ing a preserve. of the fruit in California. Plantings are being E. H. Wilson made in many other parts of the world also: 1915 France, Italy, Spain, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Chile, Australia, Zimbabwe, and So wrote E. H. Wilson of the fruit ofAc- South Africa. tinidia chinensis Planchon var. hispida C. F. In comparison to that of most other fruit Liang, the fruit known to the Chinese as the crops, the history of the introduction of the yang tao or mihoutao and now known to kiwifruit is remarkably well-documented. most of us as the Chinese gooseberry or By reading the accounts of the plant explor- kiwifruit. At the turn of the century, the ers, old gardening and horticultural journals, kiwifruit was a wild plant in China, a very missionary records, and reports and files of handsome climbing plant, ideal for pergolas, government research stations, and by talk- but only one of the many interesting new ing to older growers and nurserymen, we can Chinese plants being brought into cultiva- trace almost every step in the domestication tion in Europe. By the 1950s it had become a of the kiwifruit. We can follow it from its useful fruiting plant grown in a few com- origin in China to its dispersal throughout mercial orchards in New Zealand. The total the world and its development as an impor- plantings then occupied fewer than a hun- tant horticultural crop. dred acres, and only small quantities of fruit were exported to the United Kingdom. In the 1960s the first of early shipment The Kiwifruit in China kiwifruit was sent to the United States. Or- chardists in California began planting it Accounts of the kiwifruit appear in many soon after, when they discovered that the of the early Chinese texts. Indeed, it is some- fruit produced in New Zealand was being times suggested that the earliest references sold in Los Angeles for remarkably high to it can be found in classics of over 2000 prices. By 1968 they had planted 15 acres. years ago. Identification of plants mentioned Today the kiwifruit has become a hor- in such texts is notoriously difficult, how- ticultural success story. At the beginning of ever. Many of the descriptions are vague, the 1983, kiwifruit orchards covered over 20,000 allusions poetic, and a single plant is some- 25 times referred to by the different names it European Discovery of the Kiwifruit had in different parts of China (worse, the The first known collector of kiwifruit same name is sometimes used for different plants was Pere Pierre Noel Le Cheron d’In- The first of plants). unequivocal descriptions carville, a French Jesuit who spent 17 years the kiwifruit date from the Tang dynasty at the Imperial Court in Beijing (Peking). He and one indicates that (A.D. 618-907), poem collected specimens (but no fruit) at Macao, it have about this cultivation of may begun soon after his arrival in China in late 1740. time Cultivation cannot have (Yan 1981). Incarville sent his specimens back to France been extensive, however, since most writers but they remained there, ignored and unde- describe the kiwifruit as a consistently being scribed, for over a century (Franchet 1882). wild a of the mountains. At plant, plant The plant was formally described, and times the peasants would bring it to town to namedActinidia chinensis, in 1847 (Plan- sell in the markets. chon 1847), based on specimens collected several years earlier by Robert Fortune, who had been sent to China the Horticultural A kiwifruit orchard near Auckland, New Zea- by Fortune land. Tree ferns ~Cyathea sp.) can be seen m the Society of London (Cox 1943). shelter belt at left. brought back dried specimens of kiwifruit 26 27 foliage and flowers but made no mention of about the size of a big plum .... the fruit the fruit. He probably had not seen fruit, as would be a great acquisition, I think" (Henry he had had only a few chances of traveling 1903). Henry encouraged and aided expedi- any distance from the main ports. tions to collect seed and explore the flora of Towards the end of the 19th century, western China. botanists and horticulturists in Europe and North America were becoming more aware of the variety and beauty of the Chinese flora Wilson and the Introduction of the and the fitness of of the for many plants Kiwifruit to Europe temperate climates. This increased aware- ness was due in large part to the efforts of Of the various collecting expeditions, Augustine Henry, who spent 20 years in the E. H. Wilson’s had the greatest success. On service of the Chinese Maritime Customs. his first two trips to China, Wilson was in On his first tour of duty, from 1882 to 1889, the employ of James Veitch & Sons, the Henry was stationed at Yichang (Ichang), a famous London nursery firm. Veitch’s had small port on the Yangtze River about a sent a series of travelers abroad to collect thousand miles inland and just downstream plants suitable for the nursery trade. From from the famed Yangtze Gorges. 1840 to 1905 they almost always had at least Yichang had only a small European popu- one collector overseas in the botanically un- lation, and life in such an outpost could be explored parts of the world, and a remark- very lonely and dreary. Henry took up an able range of plants had thus been intro- interest in botany. "My collecting is my duced to Great Britain (Veitch 1906; Fuller exercise, and it keeps me in health, bodily and Langdon 1973). James Herbert Veitch, and mental; in these out-of-the-way posts, one of the younger members of the family, where stagnation is the rule" (Henry 1896). had collected in Japan in the early 1890s, and was aware of He was particularly interested in the eco- he the richness of the Chinese flora. He to to nomic uses of plants in China and in the ori- had been keen go China but gins of cultivated plants. His writings refer had been refused permission by his uncle to the kiwifruit several times: "a climbing Henry James Veitch (Howard 1980). Sir Wil- shrub which bears edible fruit about the size liam Thiselton-Dyer, then director of Kew, of a plum" (Henry 1887); "a very large climb- had been getting enthusiastic letters from ing shrub with white conspicuous flowers Henry; he was undoubtedly an ally in em- the of an to and fruit about the size of a plum, which can phasizing advantages expedition China Another was be made into a good jam with a guava-jelly (Nelson 1983). ally C. S. kind of flavour. This fruit might be much Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum (Wilson improved by cultivation" (Henry 1893);(; 1913). In 1899 Thiselton-Dyer was asked by "produces in the wild state excellent fruit Veitch’s to recommend a young man capable of undertaking a prolonged collecting journey in China. Thiselton-Dyer proposed E. H. Wilson Howard Mature kiwifruit are harvested m New Zealand (see 1980). dunng May (early autumn). (Photo courtesy of the The object of Wilson’s first trip for New Zealand Kiwifruit Authority.)( Veitch’s was to obtain seeds, bulbs, and liv- 28 ing plants of species almost certain to be hardy in Great Britain, species at that time known only by dried herbarium specimens. Plant collecting was often extraordinarily competitive, and claims to priority were considered very important. In a newspaper interview at the time ("The Flora and Fauna of Ichang," 1902), Wilson therefore said only that his "object has not been to collect any particular species of plants, but anything likely to be of interest or value to the botani- cal world." Later he admitted that he in fact had instructions to collect a very particular species of plant, Davidia involucrata. Wilson’s first task was to visit Henry, who was then at Simao (Szemao), Yunnan, to obtain details about Davidia and information on the flora of western China in general (Wilson 1938). The journey to Simao to see Henry certainly was not an easy one: "I crossed no less than eleven distinct ranges, E. H. Wilson with two Japanese friends, the altitude 8200 and highest being ft., many T. Miyoshi and H. Ushio. The photo was taken in exceeded 7000 ft. and were fearfully steep. In Kagoshima, when Wilson visited Japan in 1917. one place we ascended 1000 ft. in three- quarters of an hour. The easiest way to climb such a mountain is to hang on to the mule’s has pointed out, many of the plants first in- tail and let him drag you up" (Wilson 1900). troduced by Wilson were those discovered Simao was "the most God-forsaken place by Henry during his period at Yichang. Al- imaginable" but the trip was worth it: "I though Henry did not discover the kiwifruit, found Dr. Henry a splendid fellow, full of it was he who sent the first fruits to Europe knowledge of all kinds. A more genial man I and recommended that the plant be culti- have never met.

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