Tree of the Week: Persimmon

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Good morning. Sorry for the slim production this weekend, we’ve been wearing another hat, reporting on the I-5 mess all day yesterday. Without further ado, Pieter Severynen’s ‘Tree of the Week.’

Persimmon Tree – Diospyros kaki

The oriental persimmon is a beautiful, small to mid size, deciduous, ornamental, shade and fruit tree. Originally from China, it arrived here in the late 1800’s. It needs little care, but may look and fruit better with regular, but not too much water. To 30’tall x 30’wide, it is fairly slow growing and well behaved; it carries its nicely proportioned, gracefully bending branches in an open structure. After some shaping in early life it needs very little pruning. The silvery gray bark fissures into a very attractive checkered pattern.

In early fall the tomato sized fruits ripen to a bright orange. They hang on the tree long after the 6” long oval leaves have turned bright yellow, orange or red and fallen off. The ripe fruit is deliciously sweet, either fresh, dried or cooked. The many cultivars include ‘Hachiya’ whose fruit has a beautiful shape, but a high tannin content that makes it astringent until soft ripe, and ‘Fuyu’ and ‘Chocolate’ which are non-astringent, and can be eaten hard. Pollination by another persimmon tree is not necessary but improves flavor.

The persimmon members of the Ebony family include some distinguished fruit trees. The American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, from the eastern U.S., whose Cree Indian name was pasimian, has smaller fruit, is frost hardy. The meat of a green skinned Mexican black persimmon, D. digyna, turns black when ripe, while a ripe Philippine velvet apple, D. discolor, is bright red. The date plum, D. lotus, supposedly is the lotus fruit mentioned in the Odyssey; it was rumored to be so delicious that those who ate it wanted to stay put and forgot about doing anything else.

Thanks, Pieter
Photo Credit: Diglloyd