Often irritating bristles of this type are designed to discourage mammals. They irritate the mouth and tongue, and are often highly silaceous and abrade the teeth making them fatal if consumed regularly. Birds, lacking teeth and being incapable of chewing, are unaffected. The advantage to the plant is that the fruit is eaten by brids, which tend to disperse the seeds, rather than by mammlas which often destroy the seds by chewing th
No idea if this is the case with kiwi_fruitses, but it’s a possibility.
Here’s an interesting theory, though. According to this page, it’s proposed that hairy fruit suffers less damage from beetles than smooth fruit. Could be – the fruit still growing off backyard vines here where I live don’t seem as prone to insect damage than, say, apples.
Yes, Apollyon, Hayward Wright had his nursery business near where I live. Actually, I’ve got to do something about pulling together an article for our local historical journal sometime soon on the story of the kiwifruit in NZ.
The variances in spelling are interesting, Mangetout. I might make reference to them when I get round to pulling the article together.
