
{"id":304,"date":"2007-05-17T08:09:12","date_gmt":"2007-05-17T16:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/05\/17\/the-persimmons-are-flowering\/"},"modified":"2007-05-31T11:02:36","modified_gmt":"2007-05-31T19:02:36","slug":"the-persimmons-are-flowering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/05\/17\/the-persimmons-are-flowering\/","title":{"rendered":"The Persimmons are flowering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/persimmon-tree.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/persimmon-tree.jpg\" height=\"288\" width=\"216\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><em>Giant 200-year-old Persimmon tree on UNC campus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Polk Place<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>By Ken Moore<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wow, how about that Persimmon flower!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see any flower!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There it is, right there in that little angle, where the leaf is attached to the stem.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All I see is a little green thing!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it! A tiny little green flower. How many tiny little green flowers do you ever get to see? Is that cool, or what!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I was so excited years ago to discover my first Persimmon flower. Well, it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t one of those neon knock-your-socks-off floral experiences unless you get excited about little green flowers, think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re beautiful, and especially hope to be gathering tasty ripe Persimmons following fall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first really hard frost.<\/p>\n<p>The Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) is a special tree. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Usually pronounced \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsimmon. Often called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpossum apple.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 A popular wild fruit in the Cape Fear River Valley. A liquid concoction from the inner bark of the tree is supposed to be one of the best gargles for ulcerated or sore throats.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>So goes part of the description of the Persimmon from Paul Green\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Plant Book, published in late 2005 by the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation. Beyond his better known writings, Green kept lifelong notes on the cultural and natural history of his Cape Fear River Valley homeland, including Carrboro and Chapel Hill. His many notes and observations on how local folks appreciated and depended upon the local flora were extracted from the two-volume Paul Green\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wordbook to produce the Plant Book, beautifully illustrated with the color photographs of one of his daughters, Betsy Green Moyer. Included is a full description of the preparation of Persimmon beer, about which Green concluded: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Man never could drink enough to get drunk on it, and now that legitimate beer has come in, making of persimmon beer has just about passed out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/persimmon.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/persimmon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/persimmon.jpg\" height=\"504\" width=\"433\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today many local folks still cherish the fall tradition of collecting ripe Persimmons for Persimmon pudding and bread. Taste a green or less than fully ripe one and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never forget that mouth-puckering experience. My preferred Persimmon treat is very simple. I extract the seed and use the sweet cinnamon-colored pulp directly as a sauce for vanilla ice cream. Persimmon lovers will keep the locations of their favorite female trees a secret because the possums and other wild critters are more than enough competition for these tasty treats. Trust me, Persimmons are best when the freshly fallen fruit are quickly plucked from the ground.<\/p>\n<p>There are some mighty Persimmon trees scattered about our community. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect me to tell you exactly where they are, because I am one of those avid fall Persimmon pickers. I will mention that one of them is a stately female specimen in full view of a bus stop, and it is such a prolific producer of delicious fruit that, if you are observant enough to discover it, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy to share it.<\/p>\n<p>There is a 200-plus-year-old specimen on the Polk Place quad on the UNC campus. Its odd position on the edge of the green, out from the double row of oaks planted in the 1930s, indicates that it was a part of the original forest cleared south of South Building to make way for university expansion.<\/p>\n<p>Decades ago the local folk had great appreciation for the old \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsimmons and left them standing in place when clearing land. The tree on Polk Place is a female, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect to find many Persimmons; most of the former adjoining forest has long since been cleared, and I fear the lone male or two left standing are too far distant for insect pollinators to travel. It is, however, well worth a stroll on campus to see that tree, which, though not as large as the sacred Davie Poplar located north of South Building, is memorably impressive. When standing under that grand old Persimmon tree, observe the characteristic dark chinky bark, look straight up at the real character of the tree and then step up and hug it. Haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you ever hugged a tree? It will take at least two to hug this tree, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth it.<\/p>\n<p>Go ahead, no one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s looking; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK to hug the tree. And then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll know how to identify a tree for your own \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsimmon picking, come next fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giant 200-year-old Persimmon tree on UNC campus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Polk Place By Ken Moore \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wow, how about that Persimmon flower!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see any flower!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There it is, right there in that little angle, where the leaf is attached to the stem.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All I see is a little green thing!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it! A tiny little green&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-flora"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}