Botany Photo of the Day

There are few sights so arresting in our deep south as a late fall persimmon tree - leafless, black-barked and loaded with bright orange fruits. The best fruits are not the bland kaki, which can be eaten at any stage, but the large, acorn-shaped fruit - best eaten when the fruit resembles a plastic bag full of jello. Delicious beyond description!

Marie!!! Fancy seeing you here! Thanks for posting the cool photo. These photos are often one of the brightest spots of my day. We just planted a few persimmons at Socrates Sculpture Park a year or so ago. Now I need to go check them out.

I'm a child of the South, and remember "foraging" for persimmons in the woods near my home. But woe is he who tries to eat one before the first frost. Csn you say "Pucker up big time"? After the frost they're delicious!

I am thrilled that a picture of mine is the photo of day! So cool. This is plant geek heaven for me and a wonderful resource...

Corrina! I'm so impressed that you guys already planted these - I came to them lately and am planning some for a little park on East Houston Street...All native and as much edible as possible. I'd love to get in touch with you.

I used to grow these when I lived in New Jersey. They are super sweet and delicious, and make a great persimmon-black walnut bread!!!

not ornamental? well, you can't argue with...
one of my favorite trees!
have over fifty planted on several acres. wood was once used for shuttle-cocks.
unique in that the sap wood is more useful than the heartwood- i seem to recall...not amnesia i hope. i've turned it and used it for turning chisel handles.

When I lived in Maryland, our house looked out over a field with an aged, craggy persimmon tree just uphill from a creek. Beneath the tree? A large fox den. Fast food and running water! Fall was especially colorful there!

And I bet Bobby Jones's driver and fairway woods were all machined from beautiful American persimmon. Too bad that we have turned to titanium and other unobtainium space age materials to hit a little golf ball with.

I have never developed a taste for persimmon--even when fully ripe, but I have a fond memory of my neighbor's tree when I lived in Atlanta. I would frequently find opposums sitting in the tree in the evening. I have heard of this connection before. This was some years back, but I seem to remember finding them in the tree often even when it was not in fruit.

Persimmons make a wonderful "plum(or Christmas)pudding"!

A couple of points for clearification. D. kaki comes in a variety of cultivars , some can be eaten out of hand regardless of ripeness , others cannot and will give the same reward as a D. virginiana if not butter soft ripe . Puckering ones mouth is not even an adequate description of the sensation caused by unripe persimmons . Second , D. virginiana comes at least in two natural forms , one varitey has fruit that is tomatoe shaped and somewhat flat, as pictured above . The other , found in Northern Florida has fruit that is ovoid and elongated and does not resemble its sister form in any way .The ovoid form is also much smaller and generally lacks that checkered board bark pattern found on the tomatoe shaped forms. They also taste differently. I am not aware that botanists have catagorized the two forms but growing up in rural North Florida I know of what I speak.

I love persimmons! My favorite is "fuyu" variety grown here in California.

I didn't know about wild persimmon picking in the South. That sounds like lots of fun.

The bright orange color really cheers up the cold foggy days. Thank you!

An old Marylander told me that an ancient First Peoples remedy for a headache was to walk 7 times around a persimmon tree without thinking of a 'possum. In Indiana we made persimmon pudding- sort of like pumpkin pie but wilder. There was a tree on the IU Bloomington campus in a little circle between the Botany building and the History building.

i was born in new jersey i havereal memories

of this tree and yes all the good cooking

now i live in florida and it is differnt

i am 10 generations in america and i like
to read about the plants my family
lived with as they moved from the south
then wagon train on west thank you

Recipe for curing baldness: juice of one green persimmon and a pinch of alum, rub in.
Doesn't make hair grow just draws both sides together!

As a young boy in Alexandria, Virginia, we had a solitary and large American persimmon in our backyard. It was one fruit that taught me patience; picked a minute too early and your mouth would pucker to the point of turning inside out.

I'm surprised to see the fruit pointing upwards without a stalk. I love my 'Hachiya' Japanese persimmon and find it a lovely sight now with the myriads of orange 'lanterns' hanging down like so many pumpkins that Jack Frost thoughtfully hung. The reticulated bark is also to be admired now. For a member of the teak family/Ebenaceae, the wood is surprisingly brittle though in winter storms.

So what is the story with the "acorn shaped fruit" of Nancy's? Is it the "elongated northern Florida" fruit of Bill Barnes or is it a different cultivar of Diospyros kaki which is pointy? And 'Fuyu' definitely sounds Japanese so is that a Diosporos kaki cultivar? And I never pay too much attention to Dirr's aesthetic assessments....

Why should the sap wood be more useful? Certainly the heartwood is stunning to view. Is it a result of brittleness? Ebony wood is extremely brittle to turn but nevertheless useful. Perhaps usefulness should not only be determined by wear but also by beauty. Back to aesthetics....

I have a small group of these down near my creek, and I think their long, straight trunks are wonderful. I also have a Doberman bitch that cannot wait for them to start falling off the trees and gorges on them, even before they are ripe. Hard to understand when even the chickens don't like them. I have given up trying to stop her.

One I tried in Texas had very nice edible fruit, long before the first frost of the autumn. It isn't invariably astringent!

Persimmons are a natvie woodland tree locally in the Sourland Mtns and ridges of central west NJ. This tree is one of the first trees to be completely removed from new development sites. It is rarely identified and not saved for diversity by landscapers and landscape designers. It is considered an unattractive tree having no value. The deer browse saplings in the forest. Consequently, it is found only in pockets of undeveloped and wooded land.

Song Lyrics;
Possum up a simmon tree
Racoon on the ground
Racoon asks that possum
Won't you shake them simmons down

There was a persimmon tree on my Grandma's farm. I guess I was never told about the waiting until after the first frost because I didn't understand why people thought they tasted so good. My Grandma did make some Christmas desserts with them. I would not remember what because I never ate it thinking it would taste bad. I also couldn't believe when I saw them in the produce section years later for a very expensive price or at least I thought so. Now I would like to try them after the first frost and eat my Grandma's Christmas dessert.

Euell Gibbons ("Stalking the Wild Asparagus")suggests that the first frost has nothing to do with it - that it's not the frost, but the time of year that is relevant. He experimented with freezing the persimmons, and found them just as tart as before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euell_Gibbons

Regarding the descriptions of the persimmons from Texas and Florida, I have seen another species described that is native to Texas. I do not know if this species is also the one described by Bill Barnes, but it may not be D. virginiana.

I have a D. virginiana, a D. kaki and a hybrid D. 'Nikita's Gift' growing in my orchard; however, they are not of bearing age. But their fall foliage, particularly on Nikita's Gift, are spectacular. The color is predominantly orange grading to scarlet.

If you want a fruit tree that has good fall color

We have one of these in our garden. It is the most boring tree. I was about to grub it up. I now read this....

"Fruit may be produced by 10-year-old trees but optimum fruit-bearing age is 25-50 years."

I will probably be dead before it fruits! Shame.

Doug, thank you for posting the possum ditty. I had forgotten it, but I remember my daddy (I am southern) saying it to us.

Help! I'm not getting your email anymore and I really enjoyed it. Please put me back on the list. Thanks. Lynda