{"title":"Persimmons (Diospyros)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe genus name means food of the gods, which is either generous or a warning depending on when you bite. An American persimmon before frost is famously, memorably astringent; the same fruit two weeks later, gone soft and translucent, is honey and apricot and one of the better things in a Southern autumn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDiospyros virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e is a tough, adaptable native that grows in poor ground and old fields, feeds nearly everything with legs, and carries bark broken into small blocks like alligator hide. The trees are mostly dioecious, so fruit follows where a male grows nearby. \u003cem\u003eDiospyros texana\u003c\/em\u003e, the Texas persimmon, is the other proposition entirely: small, slow, and grown for smooth gray bark that peels to pink and cream, with black fruit that stains whatever they touch.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"diospyros-virginiana","title":"Diospyros virginiana","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe botanical name reads like a compliment: \u003cem\u003eDiospyros\u003c\/em\u003e joins the Greek \u003cem\u003edios\u003c\/em\u003e, divine, to \u003cem\u003epyros\u003c\/em\u003e, grain, so the genus translates roughly as \"fruit of the gods,\" a lofty title for a tree that drops sweet, homely orange fruit onto the forest floor each autumn. The common name travels the other direction, plain and American, from the Powhatan word \u003cem\u003eputchamin\u003c\/em\u003e for a dried fruit, a reminder that Native peoples were drying persimmons into cakes long before the botanists arrived.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDiospyros virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e is a medium, deciduous tree of the ebony family, native across the eastern United States, pyramidal in youth and rounding with age. The deeply blocky, gray-black bark, cracked into neat squares like alligator hide, is one of the surest ways to know the tree in winter. Persimmon is dioecious, carrying male and female flowers on separate trees, and only the females bear fruit; the small, greenish-yellow, bell-shaped blooms of late spring are quiet but draw bees in numbers. We offer seedling trees of undetermined sex.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fruit is a lesson in patience. Bite one too soon and the tannins seize the whole mouth shut, which is exactly why generations of country children have dared each other to try. Left to ripen, often past the first frost, the same fruit turns to soft, honeyed pulp prized for puddings, breads, and preserves. Beyond the kitchen, persimmon has long served as a medicinal tree: the astringent inner bark was traditionally made into a wash for sore throats, and a vitamin-rich leaf tea was taken as a tonic. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/news\/american-persimmon-a-healing-gift\"\u003eLearn about the healing properties of the American Persimmon here.\u003c\/a\u003e The wood, meanwhile, is among the hardest in North America, dense enough that the heads of old golf clubs and the shuttles of textile looms were once turned from persimmon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape, give \u003cem\u003eDiospyros virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e room as a specimen shade tree, a wildlife tree at a woodland edge, or an anchor in an edible or native planting. Persimmon tolerates a wide range of soil and moisture and asks little once established, and the autumn fruit feeds deer, foxes, opossums, and birds as generously as the gardener. Set the tree where the ripe fruit can drop without staining a patio, and plant a known female, or a group of seedlings, if a crop is the goal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/gallery\/result.php?id_image=45420\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAlan Cressler\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860382835,"sku":"DIOS-VIRG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Diospyrosvirginiana.png?v=1733437566"},{"product_id":"diospyros-texana","title":"Diospyros texana","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiospyros texana, the Texas persimmon, is a small, tough native tree grown above all for the bark, which peels away in thin flakes to reveal a smooth, mottled patchwork of white, gray, and pink beneath. Intricately and crookedly branched, this is a sculptural little tree, as handsome bare in winter as it is in leaf. A creature of the Texas hill country and northern Mexico, the Texas persimmon shrugs off heat, drought, and lean limestone soil that would defeat softer plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmall, fragrant, urn-shaped white flowers open in spring, and because the tree is dioecious, only female plants set fruit, and only where a male grows nearby. That fruit is worth waiting for, a round, sweet, black persimmon ripening in late summer, good fresh or in jams, and long used to make a black dye for hides. Birds, foxes, and other wildlife take the crop as eagerly as any gardener, and the flowers feed bees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe persimmons belong to the ebony family, and Texas persimmon carries the family trait in a dense, nearly black heartwood, prized for carving and small turned goods. Unlike the common persimmon of the eastern woods, Diospyros virginiana, this southwestern cousin stays small and semi-evergreen, holding the dark, leathery little leaves late into the season in mild winters and dropping them where the cold bites harder. Slow-growing and long-lived, the tree rewards patience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive Diospyros texana full sun and well-drained soil, ideally on the alkaline, rocky ground this tree knows best, and expect a tough, drought-proof specimen for a courtyard, patio, or xeric border. The peeling bark and twisting branches make a year-round focal point, while the fruit and flowers earn a place in any wildlife or native planting. For a small, water-wise tree with real character, few natives of the Southwest can match the Texas persimmon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860644979,"sku":"DIOS-TE-ANA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DiospyrostexanaSusanShroederFruit.jpg?v=1784306507"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/diospyros.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}