2022 Look for flavors of ruby red grapefruit, watermelon, rosewater and persimmon.ĭave Mcintyre, Washington Post, 28 July 2022 Texas persimmon in my neighborhood grows to about 20 feet tall.Ĭalvin Finch, San Antonio Express-News, For drier sites, consider Eastern redcedar, hackberry, pignut hickory, American persimmon, sumacs and hophornbeam. Information about persimmon trees about other types of trees found in Missouri can be found at mdc.mo.gov.įrancis Skalicky is the media specialist for the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Southwest Region.Recent Examples on the Web These, along with fruits from the park trees and a small persimmon tree in our yard that produced a surprisingly large haul that year, fed us all fall and into winter.

Order forms are also available at most MDC offices. Tree seedling ordering information can be found online at mdc.mo.gov/seedlings. The ordering period will run through April 15. If you’re interested in adding these trees to your property, persimmon is one of many trees that can be ordered through the Missouri Department of Conservation’s annual tree seedling sales program, which is currently underway. Today, it’s most common location is old fields, pasture edges and other out-of-the-way places of the rural landscape. Moving back to our native persimmon tree, much of its former prominence has gone by the wayside. It produces a larger fruit than our native persimmon tree and today is the source of much of the persimmon fruit sold commercially in the U.S. This persimmon variety became established in the western U.S. was what’s become known as the “Japanese” or “Oriental” persimmon, Diospyros kaki. and Japan in the 1850s, one of the items he brought back to the U.S. When Commodore Matthew Perry established formal relations between the U.S. It should be noted that these references pertain to the persimmon tree native to North America - Diospyros virginiana - which had a native range consisting of the eastern and central U.S. On top of all these uses, green persimmons could be used to make ink. An 1863 edition of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser reports “… the seeds of the persimmon when roasted and ground produces a beverage which cannot, even by old and experienced coffee drinkers, be distinguished from genuine coffee.” Persimmon seeds were one of several alternatives Southern coffee drinkers turned to. Because of the Union blockade of Confederate port cities, coffee was among the food items that were in short supply in the South. If you lived in the South during the Civil War and didn’t need persimmon seeds for buttons, you made coffee with them. In 1863, a writer for Atlanta’s Daily Intelligencer wrote, “If you use them (persimmon seeds) for buttons, the washer woman will hardly break them with her battling stick.” Persimmon seeds were used as buttons - particularly in the South - during the Civil War. Moving from food to function brings us to another former value of persimmons. Dysentery, diphtheria, thrush and hemorrhoids were among the maladies that had home remedies that included persimmon parts. The medicinal value of persimmon bark and/or fruit was touted in a number of 19th century cures. Many claimed this tree and its fruit also had a curative aspect. In 1773 Finnish naturalist Pehr Kalm wrote that “(Persimmon beer) is reckoned much preferable to other beer.” A century later, persimmon beer was common enough that it had developed a nickname – “possum toddy.” This was a reference to a place opossums are commonly found in the fall - in persimmon trees eating the fruit.

Two of the more interesting products of persimmon fruit were persimmon wine and persimmon beer.

The food value of persimmons was quickly adapted by pioneers as America became settled and a number of food items made from persimmons developed. In the 17th and 18th centuries, persimmon trees were introduced to parts of Europe and their propagation was encouraged. The Spanish explorer references them as a tasty fruit and the source of a bread made by Native Americans. The earliest mention of persimmons is found in the journals of Hernando de Soto’s expedition through parts of what is now the southeastern and south-central U.S. Regardless of what side you take in this weather debate, everyone can agree that this tree has had an interesting history in North America.

Persimmon origin