Foraging For American Persimmon

Often overlooked, the American Persimmon tree provides plenty of native, wild fruit in the late fall to early winter. While these trees can be, and often are purposely grown, native persimmon trees grow wild in hardiness zones 6 to 10 (and even cooler, sometimes).

Fruit growing on an American persimmon tree. — The American persimmon tree offers delicious fruit in late fall to early winter, long after most trees have lost their fruit.

I love foraging. Being able to get out in nature and harvest in the abundance that it provides without having to go through all of the work of cultivating and growing it ourselves.

Persimmons are a widely overlooked fruit that is ripe long after most fruit has already fallen off and withered away. They're in season from September all the way through December and one of Indiana's, where I'm from, best-known wild edibles because they're so prolific, especially in the southern portion of our state.

The wild American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) does not grow as large as their commercially grown cousins, however, they still provide a great opportunity to forage for fruit in the cooler months of the year. Providing an easily identifiable, wild edible that a large portion of the United States has growing.

Identifying Wild American Persimmon Trees

American persimmon tree with leaves and orange fruit. — The fruit on American persimmon trees can be quite small, making it often difficult to recognize until the tear-drop-shaped leaves have fallen off of the tree.

The Diospyros virginiana is the only persimmon that is native to the United States. While other cultivars such as the Japanese and Chinese persimmon, are commercially grown here, only the American Persimmon is native.

The American persimmon tree can grow to heights up to 60 feet. However, they're generally a touch shorter than that (a minimum of roughly 35 feet tall). The branches tend to droop slightly.

A distinguishing characteristic of these amazing trees is their bark. It looks similar to crocodile skin and is chunky, grey-black bark.

The leaves of the American persimmon are tear-drop shaped, grow in an alternating pattern, and are approximately 6 inches in length. The leaves on this deciduous tree typically turn a bright red color in the fall, but can also simply turn yellow.

Persimmons are dioecious, meaning there are both male and female American persimmon trees. Only the female trees bear fruit.

The most distinctive feature of a persimmon that sets it apart from wild plums is the leaves clinging to the top of the fruit. Persimmons are fairly small, around 1-2" in diameter, about the size of a plum. Since it is so small, it can be difficult to notice the fruit until all of the leaves have fallen off of the tree.

The distinctive feature of the leaves clinging to the top of persimmon fruit. — A distinguishing feature of the persimmon is the distinctive leaves that cling to the top of the fruit.

The fruit turns from green to yellow, to a vibrant orange color when it is ripe. These fruits do not have any color until autumn, many times after all of the leaves have already fallen off. This is another distinguishing feature as most trees will have already lost all of their leaves as well as their fruit.

These trees live a long time, being the most productive between 20 and 50 years of age. This means that once you find a good spot for them, you can return year after year to harvest more delicious fruit.

Gathering Persimmons

Gathered persimmon fruits in a basket sitting on the grass. — Persimmon fruits are only good when they're ripe, however, as long as they're orange in color when picked they will continue to ripen off of the tree.

Persimmons are a fruit that is not good before they're ripe, not in the slightest. Unripe persimmons are incredibly bitter. In fact, they're best when they appear like they're about to go bad.

Persimmons should be gathered when the skin is beginning to wrinkle and the fruit is fairly soft. The fruit typically falls off the tree when ripe, though you may find some still clinging to branches even into the winter months.

A lot of folks say that persimmons are best after the first frost. Making this a great fruit to go foraging for after it has frosted in early October. If the fruit has wrinkly skin, and is soft, but still clinging to the tree, you can manually pick them or use a fruit picker to grab them off of taller trees.

All this said, as long as the fruit is orange when it is picked, it will continue to ripen off of the tree. So, if you go out foraging and find a few that aren't quite ripe enough, just place them in a paper bag at room temperature for a few days and they'll ripen right up.

Eating Persimmons

Persimmons are amazingly sweet when they're ripe and are excellent fresh. You can remove the skin if you'd like, but it really isn't necessary. Simply spit out the seeds and enjoy this delicious fruit fresh.

A few other options are making persimmon jam from the pulp, which you can actually freeze in advance and utilize in a jam recipe later.

You can also make persimmon bread, persimmon cookies, and persimmon pudding for some other popular options.

Persimmons are easy to identify and create a delicious source of wild fruit well into the colder months of the year. If you've not gone foraging for them, I recommend it.