The generic name comes from the Greek erion, meaning wool, and botrys, grouped or in a cluster, the sort of cottony wool that comes with their stems. Native to China and Japan, where they were used for over a thousand years ago, the Jesuits brought it to the island of Mauritius and from there it first came to France in 1784 and then to Italy in 1812. In Spain they arrived a little later, and they spread, thanks to a merchant seaman called Captain Roig, who left from Sagunto where he first landed, throughout the Levant and Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Since then it is cultivated both for its ornamental possibilities and for its fruits, although it is in the list of invasive plants in Spain.