The beautiful common persimmon...tasty and it can predict the weather too!

Common Persimmons (Diospyros virginiana) are such exotic-looking little fruits. They ripen late in the season, slowly turning a pale orange and then darkening to the burnt orange of harvest...

An almost-ripe common persimmon clings to the branch in the cool autumn air... 

...but don't be tempted to pluck one off the tree and just bite into it. Start with just a tiny taste to make sure it's ripe. Unripe persimmons  are horribly astringent and will suck all the moisture out of your mouth. Descriptors such as "furry," "bitter," "horrible," "god-awful," or just plain "puckery" are common. The best description of all, however, goes to Captain John Smith of the Jamestown colony. In 1612 he wrote, "If it be not ripe, it will drawe a man's mouth awrie, with much torment; but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as an Apricock." If that isn't enough, also in 1612, William Strachey, who wrote Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania, also talked about the lovely fruit and said, "...when they are not fully ripe, they are harsh and choakie, and furre a man's mouth like allam...." This little fruit definitely makes an impression (source: an in-depth article on the history of the common persimmon in the New World, click here for the .pdf of "The common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana L.): The history of an underutilized fruit tree (16th-19th centuries)," by C. H. Briand.)

...beautiful autumn leaves and apricot-colored persimmons from October 13, 2012 at Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky.

Why are persimmons so astringent when unripe?
Persimmons, whether ripe or unripe contain tannins, which are naturally occurring chemicals that "bind and precipitate proteins" (click here for a detailed description of tannins by Cornell University). When persimmons are unripe, the tannins are diffused freely in the fruit, which means they are "unbound" and will react to to the proteins on our tongues and in our saliva by causing the proteins to coagulate (sucking all the moisture out of our mouths and causing the furry feel that accompanies the horrible drying). When the fruit is ripe, however, the tannins are "bound up" and cannot react or coagulate. Unripe bananas also have a lot of tannins, as well as red wine that has not been aged, and nuts too. Now I know why every now and then I get that dry feeling in my mouth after eating a walnut out of the shell.

If you want to teach your kids about astringency in fruits and plants, click here for an experiment that teaches how to "unpucker" the persimmon. This experiment is labeled easy and is good for grades 5th - 8th. Specifically, it teaches kids how tannins can be bound up (or "defanged") using an iron solution. (Holy cow. I did not know any of this, but even worse, it seems any 5th grader off the street does...)

When persimmons are ripe, they are wonderful and sweet, and taste a little like an apricot. Even better, though, they can be made into persimmon bread and other yummy things. 

The four-lobed sepal of a fallen fruit is still attached to the tree next to this persimmon. If the fruit separates easily from the sepal, it is probably ripe. 

This persimmon tree was growing in the woods at Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky (October 13, 2012). It was close to the lake on the trail near the lodge. What a surprise to see these beautiful apricot-orange fruits as I rounded the bend. I plucked a few off to take back to show the rest of the family, but I knew not to bite into one. Although they were a nice harvesty orange, the fruits were still too firm and not ripe enough to eat.

...persimmons are a favorite food source of raccoons, who seem to always know when the fruit is ripe. We found lots of raccoon scat piles with numerous persimmon seeds in them on our hikes.

And now for the weather...

Folklore holds that persimmon seeds can predict the weather. Growing up in Cincinnati, we knew nothing about this amazing secret. We don't have a lot of persimmon trees here. Persimmons are mostly a southern and eastern species, and in all of my rambles, I've never come across one, so it's no wonder we were clueless to its power. It took my Aunt Pat and her family moving to Terre Haute, Indiana years ago to learn the folklore and pass it on to us, so I'm writing this post in her honor and memory. Here is the theory: when you slice open a persimmon seed, the embryo will be in the shape of a spoon, fork, or knife. Each has its own meaning:

Spoon - the winter will be rough with lots of snow. You need a spoon to shovel snow!

Fork - the winter will be light. You can't shovel much with a fork after all.

Knife - the winter will be icy, cutting and cold (yikes!). 

...a persimmon seed just bursting to let us know what to expect this winter. 

We were hoping for spoons because we love snow, so we were happy to see SPOONS...

...the persimmon seeds say SNOW! The embryo on the left is definitely a spoon, which means heavy snow, get shoveling; however, the seed on the right looks suspiciously like a spork. Unfortunately, sporks haven't been accounted for in the folklore, so who knows what's up. Perhaps we will have bouts of heavy snow with days of mild weather thrown in between. We'll take that...

Take a look at the bark...

If we're doing a complete post on persimmons, we can't leave out the bark. It's famous for its look of stacked cubes. You can spot a persimmon tree in the winter  just by seeing the crazy bark (on older trees)... 

The famous bark of a Persimmon Tree...

...little blocks of wood stacked up in a pleasing composition. 

The Cincinnati Champion Persimmon Tree at the Camargo Country Club in Indian Hill
My friend, Paul, knew immediately where a champion persimmon tree was in our area. You can see it from the parking lot of the golf course. We walked out on the course to get a closer look. The grounds keeper didn't mind...this tree is famous, huge and old and has lots of visitors...

...the wires running up the sides are lighting rods. It's nice to know the grand old persimmon tree is well protected.

...this is has been a long post...but there is just so much to say about the beautiful little persimmon. It's fitting the champion tree in Cincinnati is located on a golf course. The tree is part of the ebony family and its wood is very dense and hard. Its wood was a standard for "woods" golf clubs starting in the 1900s (and you can still have persimmon woods made today, source: click here). 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A flowering dogwood tree in autumn...

The bright red berries of a flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) tree bring a rush of everything autumn into my heart when I see them. When I was young, dogwood trees could be found everywhere. For me, their airy branches and delicate spring blossoms were the most beautiful of all the flowering trees, and when the hot summer days were swept away by cool and crisp breezes, and red and orange leaves danced in the forest, I couldn't wait for the burst of cheery red berries that would soon follow...

...bright red berries of a flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) define fall.

These berries are all from a dogwood tree I found while hiking around the lake at Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky during our annual fall trip. The tree was big, and I was excited when I turned the bend and found it. Around here, dogwood trees have succumbed to Dogwood Anthracnose, a fungal disease that stunts and often kills the tree. I remember back in the 80s when reports predicted dogwood trees might all be wiped out by the turn of the century, and it was all but hopeless. Luckily, some of the trees are surviving. A few seem to have a natural resistance to the fungus, while others seem to have survived because they are growing in a perfect location—sun, good air circulation, good drainage, yet sufficient water are all important. Since this tree was  so big, there's no doubt location, location, location was in play because it didn't seem to have been affected by the fungus and its fruit production was substantial...

...autumn leaves and red berries of the flowering dogwood add a splash of color to the fall woods.

The anthracnose fungus likes cool and moist conditions, and trees deep in shade are often more susceptible to infection. This tree was hugging the lake, but it was on a small promontory with nice sun exposure and plenty of air circulation. Because it's an understory tree, it was in partial shade, but the front faced the lake, which gave it access to extra sunlight. (Click here for a page on wet weather leaf diseases from the ODNR, which includes information on Dogwood Anthracnose.)

...red berries of Cornus florida on a healthy tree in Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky.

Dogwood anthracnose (Discula destructiva) affects flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida) in the east, south, and parts of the midwest...and Pacific dogwoods (Cornus nuttallii) in the Pacific northwest. Click here for information on how to identify and control Dogwood Anthracnose. The most common symptom of infection is "spotting and blighting of the foliage," which shows as a tan spot on the leaf ringed in purple (click here for Cornell University's explanation).

In the 80s we were warned flowering dogwoods could someday disappear from our forests, so it's always wonderful to stumble across a large, healthy fruiting tree in the woods!

The disease was first identified in 1978 and through the 80s its spread was swift and thorough through the east, south and parts of the midwest, as well as parts of the Pacific northwest, but some trees exhibited a natural resistance to the fungus. In 1991 79% of the flowering dogwood trees in Catoctin Mountain park in Maryland were dead from the fungus, but a few escaped infection and were found to be resistant to the disease. Those trees became part of a study by the University of Tennessee Dogwood Research Team. The research team was able to produce an anthracnose-resistant tree called "Appalachian Spring" from clones of the Catoctin trees. In 2001 they planted many of the disease-resistant clones in the forest to help replace those lost to the disease (for more on this story, click here and here). The University of Tennessee Dogwood Research Team, chaired by Dr. Mark Windham, a professor at the University of Tennessee, is still working to improve and protect dogwoods from all diseases (click here for a recent article on what they are doing now).

These bright red berries stand out like fruit flags to migrating birds. The berries are nutritious and full of fat and can help fuel their long flights south.

Nutritional quality among berries differs. Dogwood berries are high in fat and calories. They ripen in late summer and early fall and are a favorite among migrating birds such as thrushes and catbirds, according to Geoffrey A. Hammerson in "Connecticut Wildlife: Biodiversity, Natural History, and Conservation" (page 366). Hammerson also mentions not all birds can handle high-fat diets; e.g., American Robins absorb digested fats poorly, so the bright red dogwood berries are probably not their first choice in berries, which is good because it leaves more of the berries for the migratory species traveling long distances that need them. If Dogwood trees and their berries disappear from the forests, they will leave a hole in many migrating birds' diets.

It sounds like these beautiful trees now have a fighting chance. Let's hope they survive, not only so we can continue to enjoy their beautiful spring blossoms and brightly colored autumn berries, but more importantly, so migrating birds have a ready source of high-fat fruit to fuel their journey south in the fall.

Canoeing Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky...with two little stinkpots...

Last weekend, Rick, Matty and I, my parents, and my brother, sister-in-law and niece headed southeast for an autumn adventure at Greenbo Lake State Park in Kentucky. Every year we take a fall trip together to relax, hike and create memories. I think we've been to just about every state park with a lodge in Kentucky now. Next year the kids go off to college (sniff), but we made a pact to keep our autumn adventures going. Wherever the kids end up, we are going to take one weekend every fall and go somewhere together. This year was another perfect trip. The weather was wonderful, the hiking fun, and lots of memories were added to the memory vault...

The kids canoeing on Greenbo Lake in Kentucky. The temps were crisp and the leaves were already showing gorgeous autumn color. Being in the woods with my family is my favorite thing! (Sprinkle in a few birds, and it's icing on the cake. A female Belted Kingfisher flew right in front of us and across the lake just minutes after I took this photo.)

(Rick's the perfect canoeing partner. He always picks up the slack when I pick up the camera instead of the paddle!) Hi Rick!

Greenbo Lake is amazingly clear! You can see fish at deep depths, and you can see all the way to the bottom at least 15-20 feet from the edge. Rick and I spent a lot of time just paddling around the edges looking at fish and seeing what was on the bottom. We even saw two Stinkpot turtles (Sternotherus Odoratus) swimming and walking around...

This little Stinkpot Turtle looks like she's in shallow water, but she's in water at least 8 feet deep. This photo shows just how clear Greenbo Lake is. I'm assuming this is a female stinkpot because of the short tail; males have longer tails. She was about 5-6 inches long and was covered in algae. 

Stinkpot Turtles are new for me. I'd never seen one in the wild. Stinkpots don't do a lot of basking in the sun on logs, so you usually only see them when they are moving around in the water, and water usually isn't this clear, so we were lucky to see them. The stinkpot's head is very large and triangular-shaped with an upward pointed snout that sort of resembles a snapping turtle, but it's clearly not a snapper because two noticeable yellow stripes run from the snout to the neck. The carapace is different too because it's smooth instead of spiky like a snapping turtle's. The yellow stripes on the head reminded me a bit of map turtles also, but the carapaces were too different. I was puzzled, so I sent the photos to turtle expert, Paul Krusling, who knew immediately what they were...stinkpots!   

Stinkpot turtles aren't fast swimmers. Their short little legs produce a swimming stride that could almost be described as "lumbering," but they do move along, and I was soon pleading, "don't swim away so fast, turtle. I can't ID you yet!!"

When we got home, I pulled out "Amphibians and Reptiles of Indiana," by Sherman Minton, and started reading about stinkpots, also called Common Musk turtles. Soon all the field marks started making sense. These turtles really are distinctive once you study them. A few more descriptive field marks made the ID obvious...an elongated carapace that is smooth and domed, webbing on the feet that goes all the way to the toenails, and weak swimming. They like slow-moving water with muddy bottoms, which definitely fits Greenbo. I also read Stinkpot turtles are nocturnal, so we were doubly lucky to spot them moving around on the lake's bottom in the afternoon! As the name implies, Stinkpots (or Common Musk) turtles get their nickname from their ability to secrete a stinky smelling defensive oil through their carapace when they are under duress.

Tall pines border a good part of the lake, and when you canoe close to the shore, that fragrant pine scent sweeps over you and causes you to linger. 

My parents, Joni and Jerry, taking a leisurely pontoon boat ride with Bill and Gail. 

Canoeing on Greenbo Lake in Kentucky from Kelly Riccetti on Vimeo.

A very short iPhone video of our autumn afternoon out on Greenbo Lake.

Canoe race on Greenbo Lake in Kentucky from Kelly Riccetti on Vimeo.

...another short iPhone video of canoeing on Greenbo Lake in Kentucky...this time, a short race.

If you live in Cincinnati or Mason, Greenbo Lake State Park is only about 2 hours and 45 minutes away and is a very easy drive. We enjoyed hiking on the deserted trails and basically had the lake to ourselves. We had a lot of fun, and the food in the lodge was good too (especially the cherry pie!).