American Persimmon (Sugar Plum) (Diospyros virginiana)

Family: Ebenaceae | Edibility: Choice Edible (5/5)

Native tree with alligator-skin checkered bark and honey-sweet orange fruits that soften after autumn frosts into natural wild caramel.

Edible Parts & Harvest Seasons

Edible Parts: Fruit

Harvest Seasons: Fall, Winter

Flavor & Culinary Uses

Mouth-puckeringly astringent when unripe; decadent date-honey-apricot caramel when fully ripened and wrinkled. — Eat directly off ground when translucent, wrinkled, and squishy-soft; Pulp pulped through colander for persimmon pudding cake; Dehydrated whole like honeyed dried figs; Fermented into autumn wild persimmon beer

Habitat & North American Range

Old abandoned fields, dry woods, rocky hillsides, and river bottom bluffs. (Zone 4, Zone 5, Zone 6, Zone 7, Zone 8, Zone 9)