Seeds and cuttings I collect around North Carolina, what they turned out to be, and how to grow them for a NC Piedmont native-plant nursery.
Diospyros virginiana · Ebenaceae
Old-field tree with checkerboard bark. Fruit turns sweet after frost and the seed comes up easily.
Community photos of Diospyros virginiana to study before I head out: leaf, flower or bract, ripe fruit, bark, whole plant.
Common throughout the NC Piedmont (and Coastal Plain/Mountains); documented in Person County and adjacent Piedmont counties
Best bet: Mash and ferment the pulp in water 2–3 days, then float and rinse the flesh off to recover the flat brown seeds (up to ~8 per fruit). Cold-moist stratify cleaned seed in damp sand or peat 60–90 days at 34–40°F, then sow in spring. Direct fall-sowing outdoors works too and lets winter do the stratifying. No scarification needed. Sow into deep tree pots or root-pruning containers, or straight into the ground: the seedling drives a deep taproot and resents transplant.
A NC Piedmont native that thrives in heavy clay, heat, humidity and drought once established (USDA zones 4–9). Cautions: it is dioecious, so grow out many seedlings to end up with both sexes (only females fruit, at ~4–9 yr from seed); the deep taproot means container root-pruning or direct sowing rather than bare-root transplanting; it suckers freely into clonal thickets, an asset for a nursery but site it where that is welcome. It is also the host for persimmon wilt (Nalanthamala/Acremonium diospyri), a lethal fungal disease in the SE, so avoid wounding trunks and roots and never move soil from wilt-killed stands.
Each look-alike with the one character that settles it. Tap a photo to zoom.
Three distinct bundle scars per leaf scar and small blue-black drupes, against persimmon's single crescent scar and orange berry
Leaves opposite with arcuate veins. Persimmon leaves are alternate and pinnately veined
Much larger fruit (2–4 in) and leaves, and it turns up in planted or yard settings rather than as a wild forest pioneer
Finely serrate leaf margins and horizontal lenticels on the bark, against persimmon's entire leaves and square-block bark
Sunny edges, not deep woods. Persimmon is an old-field opportunist, so I want fencerows, road margins, powerline cuts, abandoned pasture, and the bright rim of hardwood forest. In Oct–Nov the fruit does the work for me: pumpkin-orange globes, 1–1.5 in, dangling off bare or yellowing branches once the leaves start dropping. Fall foliage runs yellow to reddish-purple. The rest of the year I go by the trunk. Thick charcoal-gray bark cracked into square alligator-hide blocks, often with a flash of orange-tan down in the fissures. One of the most distinctive barks in the Piedmont, and readable in winter from a moving truck.
October through December, but ripeness decides, not the calendar. Firm astringent fruit is immature and worth nothing. I wait until the berry is fully soft and either drops on its own or lets go with the lightest tug, which usually means after the first hard frosts. Up to about eight flat brown seeds per fruit. To clean: mash the pulp, ferment it in water two or three days, then rinse and float the flesh off. Seed is highly viable and needs no scarification. Cold-moist stratify 60–90 days at 34–40°F in damp sand or peat, then sow in spring. Direct fall-sowing outdoors does the same job and lets winter handle it. Persimmon is dioecious, so I need to grow out plenty of seedlings to be sure of ending up with both sexes; only females fruit. Sow into deep root-pruning pots or straight into the ground, because the seedling drives a taproot fast and hates being moved. Fruiting comes at 4–9 years from seed.
Around Roxboro and Person County: old fields and fencerows near Mayo Lake Park and Hyco Lake, plus rural roadside edges and powerline corridors. Persimmon colonizes exactly that kind of disturbed, sunny margin. Mark the fruiting trees this fall so I can come back for a clean ripe collection, and spread the marks over several separated trees to get some genetic diversity into the grow-out.