October may bring the color orange and pumpkins to mind, but here on the mountain, it’s the small orange orbs dropping onto the trails and around the parking lot we think of this month.
The persimmon trees (Diospyros virginiana) have an abundance of fruit this year. If you’ve ever tried to pick and eat a persimmon before it’s completely ripe, you surely experienced mouth-puckering regret. They are astringent and bitter. But a squishy, wrinkly-skinned, ripe persimmon stolen from a yellow jacket is a delightfully sweet treat.
As the fruit drop to the ground, they become important food sources for possums, raccoons, bobcats, deer, coyotes, box turtles, squirrels, chipmunks, and more. You’ve probably seen a few piles of persimmon seed-laden animal scat (poop) out on the trails. Animals help disperse the seeds through the forest. As the seeds travel through an animal’s gut, the hard coating is acid scarified, improving germination success.
Persimmon folklore: If you split open a persimmon seed, you can examine the cotyledon, and depending on if it’s shaped like a fork, spoon or knife, it can forecast the weather. A fork equals a mild winter. A spoon means get ready to shovel some snow. If you find a knife, winter will be cutting cold. Looks like we have knives here!
