Wild Persimmon ?

I was out in a forest, havign to count gall midges on Dogwood trees and happened to come across a tree that hd small orange fruit not bigger than about two inches in diameter that looked exactly like a miniture persimmon.

Dummy me didnt take time to look at leaves or anything, was to busy counting, but just grabbed a couple of the fruits. They have sorta flat brownish black biger type seds in them. They squished like a ripe persimmon too all in my pocket as I forgot about them.

Is their such a thing as a wild persimmon and if not, any ideas what type of fruit tree I might have gathered from a forest?

It sure sounds like a persimmon:

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=DIVI5

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/975/

Yep. Scientific name: Diospyros virginiana.

Resin

Yes persimmon are native and wild.

Thank you folks. I was really surprised to find it growing out there all by itself. Probably wouldn't of even noticed it if my head wouldn't have been in the up postion counting gall midges.

I took the fruit and removed as much of the flesh part as I could from it and then put the seeds on a plate outside to see if I could get the rest of the yuck to dry up.

Do you happen to know the best way to clean the rest of the crude off them without damagign the seeds and the best way to germinate them?

I'd eat them and spit out the seeds, but you could rinse them in the sink with a sieve. Dirr's book says "fall planted or given 2 to 3 months cold stratification".

Persimmons are just ripening in central Alabama this time of year. They taste terrible until the first frost hits them! Once that happens go back again and if there are any persimmons left try them. Deer, opossums (and probably bears in your part of the state!) love them.

There are other persimmons close enough if you found one in fruit. It requires a male for pollination which does not bear fruit. If you look closely in the spring the female has inconspicuous flowers (I didn't know this until I saw these on mine taken 5/6/07).

Thanks for the advice.

Passi.. I hope I don't have to go back out to that woods for awhile. I not only got galls recorded, but managed to pick up 21 spider bites and a great case of redbugs. I do not like to itch. LOL

I used deep wood off and as fully clothed, but managed to get bit anyways. Somebody told me that if you cover your body in sulfur flour that wil help keep the bugs away in deep woods, not sure if that true or not, but may just give it a try.

Sulfur flour? I'm not sure what that is, but might not just the sight of somone covered in that be enough?

Yep. There sure are wild persimmons in Alabama - called The American Persimmon as opposed to the Japanese types.

My old landlord at Moundville told me, if you want to get you some 'simmons' they are ripe now and he pointed to where they were in the woods.

When I got there it was a grove of trees. There were a few fruits left on the trees, but most were scattered around the ground at some distances from the trees. Apparently the possums had been playing baseball with the persimmons.

The trees usually grow in groves, and you have to wait until after a frost to get the fruits, because they are very astringent until they have been frosted. Then hurry or the possums will get them!

Funny thing about this thread, Starlight is surprised that there are wild persimmons --- and I had never known there were cultivated ones!

I haven't tried the wild ones yet, as above mention ya have to wait til frost, but love the Japanse ones when they starting the squishy stage.

The Japanes ones had to be picked alrady as they were falling off the
tree and the bugs were startign to eat them.

I have persimmon seedlings popping up everywhere in my yard.
The fruit are a mess and bitter-tasting, as others have said.
As for waiting for the first frost, by then they're all squished on my driveway.
The trees sadly have no fall color.
But the reason I save lots of persimmon seedlings is for the beautiful alligator-hide bark.
A cluster of them looks really nice.

I'm torn right now. We're having beautiful weather, with "first frost" scarcely a consideration. My persimmons are absolutely loaded, with plenty of the mess Weerobin mentioned. I'm still picking vegetables out of the garden, but I'd love to get some usable persimmons before the birds, opossums and raccoons finish them off. Is it too much to ask for a frost then back to 70's in the day and 40's at night?

Alas, you're dreaming.
I say just buy a couple Asian persimmons at the market and sweep the detritus from your driveway.

I found an easy way to clean them wild persimmon seeds quite by accident.

Had the seeds with all that gooey stuff still on them and put them on a plate and then was afraid of getting fruit flies or something in the house, so I put the plate out on the porch. It rained all night and day and when I went out to rescue my seeds from floating off the plate the rain had totally cleaned them off for me. I was surprised and totally happy.

Got me some nice clean seeds all ready for planting. : )

I with ya, one quick frost and then let it go back and stay in the 70's for the winter would be nice.

O.K. starlight. You are in charge of the weather!

Just no more 100 degrees please.

Luckily, Weerobin, my persimmon trees aren't anywhere close to the driveway. We have ten acres and the persimmons skirt the edges of the cleared area (about 3 acres) and fill the more open sections of the woods.

Sounds like 'possum heaven!

Today it was a terrapin. Gorgeous little critter sitting in the middle of the path by the barn with his mouth jammed full of orange gooey fruit. Haven't noticed many opossums lately, but I'm not back there at night much.

Too bad you didn't have your camera with you.

You're right, I should have run and got it. Unfortunately, work interfered. Our office is right by the house, and I got a phone call that I had to take right as I was watching the little guy chow down. The edge of his shell was scalloped in a very unique fashion. We have lots of terrapins, but that was the first of this type I remember seeing.

Glorai, I wish I coudl control the weather. Need just enough of a short cold for these plants that need some dormancy, but then I got all kinds of seed that needs sowed, so I want semi warm again.

What's a terrapin? Some type of critter?

Does anybody know, are the Japanese ones able to breed with the wild ones? Last year we found a coupel of the Japanese ones that had a seed in them. Just one big seed that was like sideways in the fruit. Was a shoock bititng into it, sure wasn't expecting to find any seeds.

Starlite: I believe a terrapin is a land turtle.

I suppose you could cross a Japanese persimmon with an American one, but the Japanese have gone to a lot of trouble to make them the way they are.

Personally, I would rather have and Japanese persimmon (there are several excellent varieties) AND an American one. I like the differences rather than all smushed up together.

But sadly, the asian persimmons aren't supposed to be hardy in our climate.
But with global warming, I've considered trying some of the asian varieties.
Does anyone know if the bark characteristics of the asian persimmon varieties as nice as our native persimmon?

Terrapin is like a turtle, except its lower shell has a hinge that closes up completely. Most turtles cannot withdraw completely into their shell, most terrapins can. Turtles can be amphibious, marine or terrestrial. I believe all terrapins are terrestrial. Most people call terrapins "box turtles".

In American English, a terrapin is an aquatic turtle, and has webbed feet for swimming. I've seen them in the Chesapeake bay (brackish, somewhere between salt and fresh water). I went U. of Maryland, soo... GO TERPS! I think a box turtle is a tortoise.

I've seen persimmons in Maryland but not here, so far anyway. They're delicious!

This message was edited Oct 15, 2008 1:17 AM

Weerobin. I can't say about the bark of the native. Didn't look that close at it when I wa sin the woods, but I like the shape of the asian one. I like how it has what I call low-ground sprawling branches.

The ones I have seen are not much taller than about 6 foot and about that big around. The asian trees I have seen are older and the place they were at, don't think they get much care or it just the season, but the leaves were looking really rough. They were pretty in the spring but a hot droughty summer and they not somethign ya want to snap pics of now.

I know last year, I bout made myself sick eating the asian ones, tryign to find some with more seed in them. Won't do that again. Just thinking about all them I pigged out on making my tummy cringe again.

Cool. I learned a new word. Terrapin. : )

Claypa is right and I was completely wrong. What I have is a tortoise, not a terrapin. I was right about it being fully terrestrial, but I had the name wrong. Sorry.

If anybody would like them, I got about 18 shiny clean wild persimmon seeds your welcome too.

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

A taxonomy of turtles.

Have any of you southerners ever tried picking a few bitter tasting fruits, and putting them in the freezer? Or maybe put them in the frig for a few days, then in the freezer? If they are already ripe, I would think that might make them edible. Then again, I do know that some American persimmon trees just don't have sweet fruit, ever.

I am surprised that native persimmon down there sometimes doesn't have fall color. My Meader persimmon, even in Minnesota colors nicely each year, although later than most trees.

I've never heard of a Meader persimmon, so I had to Google it.
Looks like it has nicer fruit.
Mine are just the native 'generic' sort. Fruit are small, very abundant, but mainly seeds.
They reseed prolifically. But sadly no significant fall color.
There are pictures of the beautiful bark on Missouri Botanical Garden's site.

I don't know about the freezer trick - sounds like an interesting experiment.
I've got PLENTY of persimmons lying about.
If I can find a couple that aren't squooshed too bad, I'll try it!
Doubt it will help with the high seed-to-fruit quotient, however.

Good idea. I wonder if it would be better to maybe put them in like apaper bag and then in the freezer first. Don't know if the cold in the freezer would maybe damage the outside of the fruit more so that the natural cold ait outside.

That's what I would be afraid of too. The regular freezer is FAR FAR FAR colder than need be.

Meader persimmon - pic from last year

Beautiful photo, Leftwood. The colors make you want to head out to Minnesota for a walk in the woods!

Howabout packing some of the p's in ice in an insulated styrafoam box overnight?

I have persimmon suckers taking over many acres of my land. They're wild, I've seen only two of them bear fruit out of literally thousands of small ones and half a dozen twenty-footers (male flowered trees? too young?) and the fruit isn't big -- not much bigger in diameter than a quarter. The leaves start out beautiful and shiny, grow spottier with age (some sort of rust disease?) and often fall untimely -- and more and more suckers show up rather than the few taller trees growing very much. They're more of a pest than anything else. The wood is hard and strong but individual trees don't grow big enough for practical use.

Persimmon heartwood is as black as ebony (they're in the same genus) but shows up only in fairly old trees -- which I lack. So: almost no fruit, invasive though apparently native, sickly looking most of the time, no useful wood in my lifetime. They're almost as bad as the sweetgums.

Gooley: How sad. And you probably can't grow good persimmons either because of the invasive one's. I think Florida and Alabama make invasives out of a lot of plants that would not be in a less tropical climate. I wonder if there isn't some kind of strategy for controlling the persimmons.

The wood sounds wonderful. I haven't seen it advertised in the wood sources, but it sounds wonderful for inlays, maybe.

I've bought cultivated persimmons (the American species and I think one hybrid with an Asian) for friends who live nearby. I need to ask them how the trees are doing. The thicket-forming tendencies in some trees tend to be reinforced by the north Florida climate. But the trees I got for them are select varieties grafted on to rootstock, and we'll just have to see how they do. Perhaps they won't sucker much, and maybe they'll get a good crop of big fruit.

I've bought persimmon wood for furniture making. The black found in the heartwood shows up only in knots, sadly: foot-wide boards show no other hint of heartwood. It's white with a hint of gray, very hard and not always easy to work, takes a good polish. I wish that the trees started forming heartwood younger...

A week plus ago, I was going to try the freezer to see if it made my Meader persimmons sweet. But they were already ripe and sweet! My tomatoes 20ft away on level ground with the persimmon had already received only a touch frost, but 80% percent of the tomato vines were untouched. Makes me believe more and more that edibility is more of a function of ripeness and genetics, and not so much freeze cycles.