Fast forward to our new place in South Carolina. Up by the street I found a young tree with these interesting flowers in the spring. These waxy little bell shaped blooms are about a half of an inch, creamy white, and hang in either clusters of three (males) or singles (female). This is a dioecious (two households) tree, each tree being either male flowering or female flowering. One very rare occasions there are perfect flowers, meaning both stamens (male) and pistils (female) are present.
From the looks of it, I have a male tree in my yard.
Though I was confused by this picture below, singular blossoms. Look closely at the left-hand side of the photo, see the double stem ends? This is evidence that there WERE two or more blooms, but they fell off.
You can see better from this angle, some of the blooms have fallen off.
The leaves are glossy and arranged alternately along the branches. The edges are smooth. The native range covers almost the entire United States, minus the states along the Canadian border. It can grow in full sun to part shade and prefers moist soil. A mature tree will be 30 -50 feet tall and have a rounded oval crown spreading 20- 35 feet in width.
According to Wikipedia, the name Diospyros roughly translated means divine fruit. The common name persimmon is from the Algonquin language, meaning 'a dry fruit' -- written in English could be spelled putchamin or pessamin or pasiminan.
It is a member of the ebony family. The hard wood has been used in golf clubs. I found it interesting that it has also been used in musical instruments. The hard wood has been used as drumsticks. Hard wood is often used as shuttles, billiard cues and hand carved wooden bowls.
The bark is one of the distinguishing features, dark and blocked bark. It is very similar to the bark of a mature dogwood.
The fruit appears in late summer. Besides the dark bark, seeing the fruit hanging on these trees makes it an easy identification. The fruit turns a yellow-orange when ripe.
Updated photo of the fruit. Not the best photo, fruit is up high, but you can see the tops of the fruit, a large leafy crown.
My favorite sources of information include-- Forestry Department Silvics Manual, Virginia Tech Dendrology Fact Sheet, Duke tree info, North Carolina State, and USDA Plants info.
|ripe fruit -- not large|
©Copyright 2012 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.