Identifying and Foraging Edible Berries – Texas Persimmon

These are berries from a Texas Persimmon Tree (Diospyros texana), one of many that I come across on my walks. The berries are fuzzy black 1/2 to 1″ orbs containing a few inedible seeds with an extremely sweet black flesh. An easy fruit to identify and collect if in need of food in the wild.

Diospyros texana is a species of persimmon that is native to central and west Texas and southwest Oklahoma in the United States, and eastern Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico. Common names include Texas Persimmon, Mexican Persimmon and the more ambiguous “black persimmon”. It is known in Spanish as Chapote, Chapote Manzano, or Chapote Prieto, all of which are derived from the Nahuatl word tzapotl. That word also refers to several other fruit-bearing trees.

D. texana is a multi-trunked small tree or large shrub with a lifespan of 30 to 50 years. It usually grows to 3 m (9.8 ft) in height, but can reach 12 m (39 ft) on good sites. The bark is smooth, light reddish gray, and peels away from mature trees to reveal shades of pink, white, and gray on the trunk

http://www.foragingtexas.com/2012/01/persimmon-texas.html