Name: Actinidia gostra – acute actinidia
Actinidia arguta (Actinidia arguta); actinidia acute
A perennial plant of the Actinidia family. A twisted bush-liana up to 15 m long. Young gnarled shoots have many lenticels. The leaves are alternate, entire, on short, naked petioles, leathery, elongated-oval or elliptical, with an apex narrowed into a short spike. The flowers are regular, 5-petalled, white, fragrant, dioecious, sometimes monoecious or polygamous, in axillary few-flowered corymbose inflorescences. The fruit is a green berry of various shapes (mostly spherical-elliptical), with a juicy, aromatic pulp, 25-30 mm long. Blooms in July.
Spread. It grows wild in the Far East on the territory of the former USSR. In Ukraine, it is mostly grown as a fruit-bearing plant in botanical gardens and homesteads.
Procurement and storage. Fruits are used. They are stored frozen or dried.
Chemical composition. The fruits of Actinidia acute contain 400-900 mg% (according to other sources – 80-100 mg%) of ascorbic acid, sugars, organic acids, trace elements, mineral salts, etc. A significant amount of flavonoids and saponins were found in the leaves and stems.
Using. The berries of Actinidia ostroi are used almost in the same way as the berries of actinidia colomicta. In domestic and foreign folk medicine, the berries of Actinidia gostroi are used as a pain reliever, expectorant, laxative and anthelmintic, for metabolic disorders, lung and bronchial diseases, gastralgia, vitamin C hypo- and vitamin C deficiency, anemia, and various accompanying diseases bleeding, as well as a general tonic after infectious diseases and operations, with physical and mental fatigue. Fresh juice of the fruits of Actinidia acute, diluted with water, quenches thirst well. Berries are used fresh and processed.