American Persimmon

Diospyros virginiana

fruit

American Persimmon is a native US fruit tree producing small 1 to 2 in orange fruits with intensely sweet honey-and-date flavor when fully ripe. The fruit is fiercely astringent until ripe (a single unripe persimmon will pucker your mouth for an hour), and most fruit needs to drop from the tree or experience a frost before it sweetens. A treasured wild fruit of Appalachia and the Ozarks, now grown in home orchards.

✅ Plant alongside

Good neighbors that attract beneficial insects or deter pests

• Comfrey — Mineral-mining mulch returns potassium to surface roots
• White Clover — Nitrogen-fixing living mulch under the canopy
• Daffodils — Spring bulbs around the trunk deter voles
• Yarrow — Attracts beneficial parasitic wasps

🛡️ Pest & disease prevention

Proactive ways to stop trouble before it starts — tap a name with an arrow for its full guide

• Persimmon psylla →

  Encourage natural predators; spray dormant oil if populations build

• Scale →

  Apply dormant oil in late winter to smother overwintering scale

• Voles and rabbits →

  Wrap lower trunk with plastic guard pushed 2 in into the soil

• Anthracnose →

  Rake fallen leaves in autumn; prune for airflow

🌾 Harvest & storage

American Persimmon ripens September through November. The fruit is only edible when fully soft and translucent; rock-hard orange fruit will pucker your mouth from extreme astringency. Many growers wait until fruit drops to the ground (spread a tarp under the tree to catch ripe fruit) or until a hard frost converts the tannins to sugar. Ripe pulp is exceptional in puddings, jam, fruit leather, and the classic Appalachian persimmon pudding.

🥗 Nutrition & benefits

About 127 calories per 100 g with 1.5 g fiber, 66 mg vitamin C (110 percent of DV), 310 mg potassium, and an exceptionally rich tannin profile. American Persimmon has more vitamin C than orange and is high in beta-carotene and the antioxidant gallocatechin, giving the dried fruit notable antioxidant capacity.