American Persimmon Family Tree

General Fruit Growing
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What I could add:

Josehine have/had another offspring called Silkeyfine. It was also selected by T.V. Munson in Texas (both befor 1904). No info abut their pollent parents.

Osage = H69A x Szukis

Briggs/Giving Tree - I’m not an expert but for me it’s look like it was grafted near the ground level Helping Preserve Bloomington’s Most Giving Persimmon Tree | Bluestone Tree. The estimated age of this tree is above 66 years so it was planted during the ‘silver age’ of american persimmons. I use this term for the times when McDaniel and other growers were activ, so it could be some lost cultivar.

Geneva Long is F1 from George Slate orchard seeds. I found that he grown at least Garretson,Early Golden, Kitch, Josephine, Kansas, Killen, Penland, Hicks, Miller, Bleeker, Miles, Lambert, Conchin, Edmonds, John Rick, Meader, Juhl, Spencer, Lena, Fehrmann (60n?), Ruby (Talbot’s), Pieper. With Lambert as my personal mother candidate.

Juhl/Yates is a mystery. It was introduced by Talbot’s nursery near 1956. For me it’s from wild (it shows black spots in flesh, which I don’t saw in other {unrelated} cultivars). It’s worth to mention that Talbot also offered Ruby, Morris Burton, Craggs, Woolbright ,Miller, Killen, EG, John Rick, Beavers.

Keener - maybe it’s a rootstock from Burbank’s nursery. I show less vigor when I compare it with my other trees, but still look like pure d.virginiana.

Mohler - If you could only grow one American Persimmon, which one? - #84 by hobilus

Pipher - was found by Ralph Kreider. The original tree was planted near 1913 and was likly a grafted tree of lost cultivar.

John Rick and Florence - both are Killen x William (mid 50’s). McDaniel describe them as morphologicaly different from their mother. William was described as a male tree with sponatnous female flowers but it was likly unrelated to genetic factors (John Rick don’t sport male limbs as far as I know). That being said I will consider it as unrelated tree to EG family, by the way it comes from understock material from Illinois (when they start to work with persimmons in Urbana).

Brittain’s Blue or Blue - ‘1978 S. Indiana Discovered by Leon Pounds…’

To be continued…

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Very interesting.
The figure now reflects this.

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Here’s next part;

Burlington - maybe @parkwaydrive know something about it.

Craggs - wild <1950 Harrisburg IL

Danielle’s Best - seedling found by @Buzzferver in an abandoned nursery (I don’t know the name), Connecticuts

DEC - as far as I know the records of the crosses are lost (maybe some of Donald’s friends remember something about the trees). Some have speculated mathernal parents e.g. King Crimson - Geneva Red, Wannabe #2 - Miller. Valeene Queen is from Claypool’s work.

Some of Lehman’s crosses eg. Deer Magnet - Jerry Lehman's Orchard Fall 2017

Forsythia - grafted from Hershey’s orchard

Gateway - "Gateway" Persimmon — The Garden Farmacy

Geneva Pumpkin - from Slate’s orchard could be Morris Burton seedling

Golden Gem - wild Borden Indiana circa 1880

Golden Supreme - wild Illinois <1900

Halloween - park seedling found in Bloomington, IN

Improved Geneva Red = DEC Improved Geneva Red - Geneva Red seedling

Jenny’s Early = EG x F-100

Josephine - wild found near Bluffton Missouri <1900

Next part will be added :smiley:

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Im afraid i have no information on the origins of these trees, but a have a wild grove in my front yard that i have been trying to kill off for 3 years.
absolutely indestructible.
i have cut them to the ground, mowed over them for 3 years and poisoned them to no avail.
i let one grow because it wasnt in the way. it fruited this fall. the one i got was Delicious. My Alaskain Malamute stood up on her hind legs, picked and ate the rest. :slightly_frowning_face:
I potted up a few if anyone would like them

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I’m seeing conflicts regarding “Halloween” above.

This is priceless information to compile for posterity and I am deeply grateful to all who are contributing to this project.

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@joan
Get a small bottle of Triclopyr, plus one or more disposable rags and a 1 inch throw-away paint brush. Wear impermeable gloves. Place rag(s) on the ground around the trunk. Freshly behead the trunk a few inches above the ground. Apply Triclopyr without dilution directly to the trunk, especially on the exposed cambium layer. Avoid letting drops of the herbicide go anywhere else except perhaps by accident on a rag. Throw away everything except the partially used bottle when finished.

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@Lech
Thank you for the additions and corrections :slight_smile:

EVERYONE:
Just as a reminder, here is the source data in spreadsheet format. The date is in the upper left corner. This includes origin data.

Also, here is a figure with the data in graphical format. It does not contain persons who found or bred the cultivars.

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G-1 and G-2 were not used as parents in breeding work. The male parents named G1 and G2 are synonyms of G1M and G2M.

Ennis Seedles - 60n, I don’t remember the source of it.

Kewanna - seedling from Indiana from Bill Deeter. Idk about it’s background.

Russian Beauty - syn. of Rossyanka

Ruby (currently in trade) is the same as Talbot’s Ruby, it was sourced from USDA.

McCampbell and Dooly (not Dollywood), both from Raintree nursery from 70’s and 80’s. The original names of this cultivars are lost (maybe someone from forum remember what they offered that time).

Rocky River - from Louisiana Bayou

Jon’s Pride - from J. Lehman’s seeds

The rest cultivars from the spread shit were likly descibed at the top of this topic.

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Thanks, Lech! This is great work. Do you have a source regarding Pipher being from a tree planted 1913, most likely being grafted? Did that claim come directly from Ralph Kreider?

Regarding Early Golden, I’m looking for primary sources to track down the origins of the tree. I know it was first propagated by E. A. Riehl of Alton, IL circa 1880 or so. Fortunately, Riehl kept a daily journal of his activities from 1863 until the day he died in 1925 but to my dismay, after acquiring a digitial copy from U of Illinois, there seems to be no mention of Early Golden persimmon in there. :frowning:

Also, I see what you mean about the Briggs/Giving Tree. It could be a graft union, or it could just be where mulch or something was pushed up against the roots? If it was really grafted, I’d think someone who’s visited the tree in person would have said so! Also for its size, I bet it’s quite old, like 100 years or more!

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Unfortunately, I couldn’t help you with Early Golden. My sourc for it was one of McDaniel’s publication which don’t mention any more details. The only thing that I remember is that the original tree was still alive during Claypool’s breeding work as he get his scions directly from it. Maybe he left some notes about this matter ?

Pipher was mentioned as a grafted tree here;

Also there is an article wrote by Ralph about this tree (in 1983 the tree was nearly 80 years old, I add some years to this as a ‘safety stock’).
Krieder1983.pdf (61.3 KB)

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One consequence of the directed graph in the figure is a view of the breeding generations. Notice though the stragglers at the bottom (Josephine, etc.). I plan to use the dates provided by Lech et al. and bring them into alignment. Also, I’ll insert Roman numerals across the top with a key to dates.

From the source data spreadsheet, I plan to generate a few more cross references tables e.g. cultivar sources. Also I’m going to add at least one more column with “suspected origins”.

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According to my Claypool notes, “The two Early Golden trees are only one clone level from the ortet and has been judged several times as still one of the best of all persimmons.” So that would mean he didn’t actually visit the ortet, but got wood from a tree grafted by someone who did. That could have been through Mim Riehl (E. A.'s daughter who continued running the business until her death in the '50s) or someone old school like McDaniel maybe who would have been in direct communication with the Riehl’s or had had instructions where to visit the tree.

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Cornucopia II, p. 481: “Selected from the wild in Alton IL about 1880.”

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For what it’s worth (and I’m not here to argue), a formerly active member I spoke with about this thread is pretty convinced Fruit Dump is not Josephine. I didn’t get into details but they mentioned they’ll be sending some folks letters regarding the subject, so I’ll update if anything comes of it.

I need to check and see if my Fruit Dump grafts from last year took.

Richard I’ve had my sights on that book for awhile now and it’s been in my cart for about a week lol.

Edit: I bought the book. If it’s what I hope it is, I’ll be holding onto it for a good long while.

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Decades ago I learned about the original version and was considering buying it. Then someone (probably in the California Rare Fruit Growers) pointed out that a new version was in the works. After all, the author is right here in San Diego county. So after a few years wait, I bought it. It sits in a revered spot along with a few other references within reach of my desk chair. The rest are on bookshelves.

So I’ve been sitting here, ignoring it for several days while building this data report for the folks on this thread. A few minutes ago I was looking for more information about a cultivar mentioned above and performed a quoted Google search (“persimmon” “Dooley”). One of the results (from PFAF.org) listed a reference for Dooley. I was astounded to see it was Cornucopia II. I open the book to the Ebenaceae section to find Diospyros virginiana. There at the end of the entry it says “For a list of cultivars, see page 481”. What a gold mine. Sitting right next to me all week :rofl:!

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Well it’s going to be flying to me from the friend’s of Maui library past you, so I look forward to reading that section for myself.

It’s been mentioned in some podcasts I’ve listened to as one of the best foraging resources, and some on Amazon said it is ‘the Bible’ of foraging. Clearly as a reference book it has value, not just going into the wilderness to eat berries. It’s a shame it isn’t readily available and is not likely to go into print again. Even more so, I hope the work performed afterwards is released in some format. Cultivariable references another book that was in the works when the author passed.

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Z
I have, from Jerry Lehman, what he called JCEG - Jim Claypool Early Golden - known to be the true Early Golden, and the scions came either from Claypool’s tree or one that Jerry propagated from Claypool’s.
It’s struggled to get gowing, but has grown well the last couple of years. No fruit yet, but hopefully in the next year or two.

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@disc4tw
It turns out that “Dooley” is not in Cornucopia II, but rather the original Cornucopia (1990). Fortunately, that version is available for online viewing (no cost) at Cornucopia : a source book of edible plants : Facciola, Stephen : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The entry there points at plant source E62, which is/was John Gordon’s nursery.

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I’ve completed another round of updates: adding some information and correcting some errors of my own.

Using the OP’s time periods:
“late 19th century”, “early 20th century”, “mid 20th century”, “late 20th century”, “early 21st century”

Which time periods do these cultivars fall within? What further information might exist about them?

Broken Top
Burlington
Deer Candy
Jenny’s Early
McCampbell
Rocky River
Weber Blue
Wonderful
WS-19-1N

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Maybe @Lee know something more about ‘Dooley’ ? (https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/28/style/cuttings-upstart-american-persimmons-add-to-fall-colors.html)

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