Climbing shrubs, large, deciduous. Branchlets reddish, with paler oblong lenticels, young branchlets white pubescent to brownish long strigose or densely ferruginous hispid-setose; pith whitish to brown, large, lamellate. Petiole 3-6(-10) cm, white pubescent or brownish long strigose to densely ferruginous hispid-setose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, broadly ovate to broadly obovate or suborbicular, 6-17 × 7-15 cm, papery, abaxially whitish or brownish stellate tomentose, adaxially usually glabrous, occasionally ± puberulent, especially more densely so on midvein and lateral veins, or densely scabrid-hispid throughout, midvein and lateral veins conspicuous abaxially, subconspicuous adaxially, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, furcate above middle, veinlets in parallel cross-bars, conspicuous abaxially, base rounded to truncate to cordatulate, margin setose-serrulate with teeth terminating tips of veinlets, apex truncate to emarginate to abruptly cuspidate or shortly acuminate. Inflorescences cymose, 1-3-flowered, white silky-tomentose or yellowish brown velutinous; peduncles 0.7-1.5 cm; pedicels 0.9-1.5 cm; bracts linear, ca. 1 mm. Flowers orange-yellow. Sepals (3-)5(-7), broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, 6-10 mm, both surfaces densely yellowish tomentose. Petals (3-)5(-8), rarely with a second whorl of 2 smaller petals, broadly obovate, 1-2 cm, shortly clawed at base, rounded at apex. Filaments 5-10 mm; anthers yellow, oblong, 1.5-2 mm, sagittate at base or not, apex acute to rounded. Ovary globose, ca. 5 mm in diam., densely golden villous. Fruit subglobose to cylindric to obovoid or ellipsoidal, 4-6 cm, densely tomentose when young, glabrous when mature to densely hispid, with many brownish lenticels; persistent sepals reflexed. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep. 2n = 58*, 116*, 174*.

The producer of kiwifruit, this taxon is widely cultivated in China and elsewhere.

Actinidia chinensis var. lageniformis S. Y. Wang & C. F. Chen (J. Henan Agric. Coll. 4: 82. 1981) and A. chinensis var. nephrocarpa S. Y. Wang & C. F. Chen (loc. cit.), both described from Henan, could not be treated here because no material was seen by the authors.

● Mountain forests, sparse secondary forests, tall grassy thickets on low mountains, thickets; 200-2600 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.