Studies On The Taxonomy Of Genus Actinidia Lindl

The plants of Actinidia are of great economic importance. And the taxonomy of Actinidia was very difficult and confusing. The genus Actinidia was established by Lindley in 1836 based on the specimen Wallich 6634 collected by N. Wallich in Nepal in 1821. Comprehensive studied on the taxonomy of the genus were carried out by Dunn, H. L. Li, and C. F. Liang. However, since 1984, no further comprehensive study on the taxonomy of the genus appeared. In the present paper, I reviewed the studies on the infrageneric system of Actinidia and decided that the natural infrageneric system is that the genus should be divided into Sections Leicapae and Maculatae. The characters of reproductive and vegetative organs of Actinidia exhibit considerable variation, and correlation between characters is poor. The taxonomy significance of the characters used for taxonomy were discussed. The delimitation by the author of taxa are based on relatively stable characters and correlated characters, with reference to the geographical distribution of the taxa and also the results of the genetic and molecular phylogeny studies of the genus. I examined the specimens deposited at PE, KUN, IBK, IBSC, and HIB. And I required to take a lot of photos of type specimens in Harvard University Herbarium and several photos of type specimens in the herbaria in China, or downloaded some photos of type specimens at the website of NY, K, US, and HK. I went to Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Guanxi to collect specimens and observed the kiwifruits cultivated in Wuhan Botanical Garden and Guangxi Institute of Botany. With reference to the results of previous authors, I recognized 52 species including 16 varieties of Actinidia. 17 species, 33 varieties and 4 forma were treated as synonyms, and two new combinations were proposed. In the present paper, the key to sections and species were given, and the description of species were followed by discussion of the taxonomic treatment. The distribution maps of most species were provided.