Plant of the Week
Persimmon
Latin: Diospyros virginiana
I’ve always suspected that possums
have that smirky grin because they are fantasizing about the coming
persimmon feast. Country folk enjoyed the persimmon too. The mushy native
fruit was a diversion from their humdrum diet. Our old friend, the
persimmon, is a botanical trickster and folk who have fallen victim to its
puckering ways hold grudges.
Persimmons, Diospyros virginiana, are found throughout
the southeast to as far north as central Illinois and as far west as central
Oklahoma. As a pioneer species it is one of the first trees to venture into
disturbed ground where it may form small thickets. Persimmons have an erratic,
right angle branching habit but at maturity have a more or less oval form and
are usually under 40 feet tall. As a close relative of the African ebony, it has
hard, dark and beautifully grained wood. A lot of the large old trees were cut
to make wooden drivers (golf clubs) during the early years of the 20th century.
The alternately arranged, ovate leaves are four to six inches
long and gray-green in color. They may turn a yellow-brown in the fall but color
production is unreliable. The bark of old trees is blackish with square,
reptilian plates that give trees a handsome winter appearance.
Persimmon flowers are white to yellow-green with four petals and
sepals. Usually plants are dioecious with either male or female trees, but
sometimes flowers of both sexes are found on the same tree. The flowers are not
especially showy being small and mostly obscured by the leaves that emerge
first.
Considerable variability exists in persimmon fruit as to size,
color, time of ripening and sensory characteristics such as texture, taste and
sweetness. Four large sepals reflex from the top of the fruit, which is yellow,
golden or orange in color and covered with a waxy bloom. The usual fruit is
about the size of a golf ball - and according to non-believers -- about as
tasty. Fruit ripening occurs from September through November with fruit hanging
on the tree until early winter.
Since the time of the rapid western expansion following the
Civil War, agriculturists have been predicting that the persimmon is just on the
verge of becoming an important fruit crop. But, alas, it didn’t happen then and
it still hasn’t happened. It probably never will. While the Japanese and Chinese
have developed over 1000 cultivars of a closely related species they call
"kaki," only a few improved selections have been made of our native species.
The first European to come into contact with the persimmon was
Hernando DeSoto when he crossed the Mississippi River near Memphis in 1541. He
found dried fruit and loaves of bread made from persimmon at the ancient Indian
village of Casqui which is now the Parkin Archeological Park.
Captain John Smith, the founder of the Jamestown colony in
Virginia in 1607, wrote of the persimmon: "If it not be ripe, it will drawe a
man’s mouth awrie with much torment. When it is ripe, it is deliscious as an
Apricock."
A uniquely Ozarkian legend has it that one can prophesy the
severity of the coming winter by inspecting the seeds of the persimmon. Seeds
are cut lengthwise to reveal the embryo suspended in a field of white endosperm.
If the embryo is shaped like a knife, it will be a bitterly cold winter. If the
embryo is spoon shaped, expect lots of snow. If it is fork shaped, a normal
winter is in store.
While most consider such prophecies as unfounded superstition,
there may be some basis for the observation. If one assumes that summer weather
patterns are a predictor of winter weather conditions, it is not illogical to
reason that morphological changes could be reflected in the embryos of seeds
formed during those summer months.
About a dozen cultivars of persimmon are described and a few
specialist nurseries offer them over the Internet or through their mail order
catalogs. In the garden the persimmon is easily accommodated in about any sunny
site. The fall webworm that produces the dirty gray webs in persimmons every
fall are more ugly than harmful, a fact you should remember when they invade
your tree.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
October 11, 2002
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