Persimmon Seed Predictions

My first experience with persimmon fruit was at a friend’s house when I was in high school. He told me to bite into it because it was delicious. All I remember is that it was one of the worse things that I have ever tried in my life. It was unripe which meant it was very astringent and it felt like my mouth was coated with something that just made me pucker, pucker and pucker some more. 

A few years ago, a colleague of mine brought in persimmons he harvested. Flashbacks of my previous experience came to mind and I thought, “oh, no, not again”. Because I didn’t want to disappoint him by not trying one, I decided that I would eat one. To my delight it was sweet and delicious, and not at all like my experience years ago.

                                  

                                 

 Here are some interesting things to note about the American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana):

• Native to the Eastern United States (not to be confused with the Japanese persimmon, Diospyros kaki, which is a favorite cultivated species often found in grocery stores).
• Harvest fruit in the fall after the first frost. WATCH OUT! If you eat them before they are ripe they will be very astringent and make your mouth pucker.
• It’s best if you allow the fruit to ripen and fall to the ground instead of harvesting right off the tree. (Persimmon trees can grow to 50-60 ft tall making it difficult to harvest right off the tree).
• The pulp from the persimmon fruit is made into bread, pies and pudding.
• Persimmon folklore: their seeds predict winter weather.

One of my favorite things I have learned about persimmons since living in Missouri is that they predict the upcoming winter weather. Want to find out if you need to settle in for a long snowy winter by the fire or whether your shovel will have a break this season?   

Here is how you do it:

1. After harvesting the fruit, save the large black seeds. Washing them off and drying them with a towel will make the task of cutting them in half easier. 

The seeds, before getting washed.

2. Get your tools together. You will need a very sharp knife, a pair of pliers, and a cutting board. 

All the tools you'll need.

3. Hold the seed using the pliers so that you can see the "seam" of the seed from the top. You will cut down this line, splitting the seed longitudinally.

Sharp knives work best.

4. Pry the seed open and look inside. What you will see will resemble a spoon, fork or knife. Botanically when you look inside the seed, you are seeing the endosperm and cotyledon. It is the shape of the cotyledon that we are looking at to predict our winter.

Cut open persimmon seed.

           

Spoon: You’ll be shoveling lots of snow this winter

Fork: Winter will be mild

Knife: It will be bitter cold

What are the persimmon seeds telling us this year?  SPOONS! So, for those of us in the St. Louis area, make sure your shovels are in good working condition for this winter season.                                                                   

 Content written by Karen Walker, ethnobotanist and the American Indian Ethnobotany Program Manager

Wildfires in Chios

The recent report of wildfires on Chios, Greece is devastating news to the botanical world. The forested island is home to an ancient grove of Pistacia lentiscus tree that produces a resin known as mastic. Mastic is used in everything from chewing gum to spices to perfume additives to varnish and is one of Greece’s national prides. Production of mastic dates back to 50 A.D. and within the European Union has a protected designation of origin status, meaning that mastic production is recognized as being unique to Chios. 

 The landscape of Chios prior to the fires.

Modern production of mastic on Chios follows the ancient traditions of mastic harvesting. The resin is from the bark of the tree, rather than the wood and the best way to harvest mastic is by cutting the tree and letting the resin fall to the ground. Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, visited Chios in June of this year and photo-documented the harvest of mastic resin. 

The mastic tree

First step is to clean and sweep under the trees, making the ground level and free of large debris to ready it for the mastic to fall.

Cleaning up the perimeter

Next, a layer of calcium carbonate is spread on the ground to allow the resin to clump without altering its composition.

Spreading the calcium carbonate

Thick layer of calcium carbonate

Then, slits are cut into the bark. 

 The mastic resin oozes from the tree, dropping into the prepared calcium carbontate below.

Collecting the fallen resin

The wildfires broke out in the early morning hours of August 18, 2012 and quickly spread along the southern portion of the very dry island. Villages were evacuated, and many of the ancient mastic trees went up in flames. While it is still uncertain how many tree were destroyed in these fires, the economy of Chios and the estimated 3,000 families who depend on the mastic trees as well as the global market will be greatly affected by this loss. These fires will change the amount of mastic available today, and many more events like these fires could endanger mastic production in Chios even greater. It is a clear lesson as to why the collection of all biocultural artifacts, even those that are modern and prevalent, is necessary.

Sources: 

Top scan from Financial Times, September 1 -2, 2012

Chios fire burning for a fourth day, mastic trees damaged.ekathimerini.com.
Paradise lost: Residents flee from two villages as firefighters battle to contain massive wall of flames on Greek Island  DailyMail.

Introduction

We do a lot of things at the William L Brown Center to document, preserve, communicate and celebrate useful plants and traditional knowledge. In this blog we hope to capture all the facets in our work. We will publish field stories, photo galleries from our field trips, tutorials on how to integrate ethnobotany into your life, recipes, links to our scientific papers when they publish and relate our work to current events.