The MGS Forum
Plants for mediterranean gardens => Fruit and Vegetables => Topic started by: MikeHardman on September 12, 2016, 10:00:48 PM
-
This tree had puzzled me for some while, seeing it from a distance. Today, I was asked to prune it, as every year its fruit would fall and make a sticky slippery mess of the path beneath it. So I was able to get up close and personal with it. Now I know it is Diospyros lotus (date-plum, Caucasian persimmon).
The berry has the 4-lobed calyx typical of Diospyros, but the fruit is small - 2cm diameter. There are more fruit on a branch than with D. kaki.
This particular tree is about 8m tall, with a slender trunk and quite an open and upright crown. I get the feeling it might have been broken by storms if it weren't for the villa it is growing right next to.
The leaves are 10cm long including petiole, and these particular ones are badly affected by sap-sucking pests (thrips, I think).
This (in Prodromi) is the only example of this species I know, and it has not been mentioned on the MGS forum before.
Do other folks here grow it / know it?
Mike