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Story: Kiwifruit

Male and female flowers

Male and female flowers

Male and female flowers grow on separate kiwifruit plants. Male flowers (top) produce pollen from the numerous stamens. Female flowers (bottom) have a well-developed ovary with long sticky stigmas in the centre. Although female flowers have stamens, they do not produce functional pollen.

Using this item

Natural Sciences Image Library of New Zealand

Reference: Ho4760pRbt (top); Ho4575Rbt (bottom)

by Dick Roberts

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How to cite this page

Hugh Campbell and Julia Haggerty, Kiwifruit – The hairy berry, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/17716/male-and-female-flowers (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Hugh Campbell and Julia Haggerty, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

Therese
03 January 2011
I have just taken some cuttings of kiwi fruit vine from an old property in Ballarat Victoria. Apparently the vines do fruit, so there must be male and female vines. How do I distinguish one plant from another other than the flowers? Will they fruit from cutting etc. I only want a few vines for my rural property and have about 20 or so cuttings. If I have only one gender, will they still flower but not fruit etc. etc.