There are several Kousa threads on here, all of which seem to have lapsed. This was the longest of those I read and the one with the most information, so I’m bumping it in hopes htose with experience jump back in.
I tried fruits from two different trees today. One a random find in a parking lot, covered with fruits. At first I thought it was Che, but it didn’t quite look right, even though I recognized it. It was a solidly red color, throughout, and a rather night flavor. I easily got the general descriptors of pawpaw, mango, tropical, and also imagined a pretty strong strawberry flavor. Leaves were still solidly green tree-wide with a bit of yellowing or browning on the tips.
The other was an orange fruited variety I always see in my neighbor’s yard. It is already turning red in the leaf, so I had to get close to it to see if there were fruit. It is also loaded with fruit. I could get the generic tropical description from it, as well as the common rather bland descriptor.
Most of the pages I landed on suggested the orange was more common, although more pictures of the red ones abound. Our site suggests 1 - 2" fruits in a couple places, but these, and every prior sample I’ve seen, seem to be fairly consistently between 1 and 1.5 centimeters.
Any new experiences with best flavored fruit cultivars, especially if there are larger ones? It also sounds like some have fewer seeds.
I took all the ones I ate from the tree. all were fairly soft. The red ones kept their stems while the orange ones left hteir stems and were a bit more closed/dry where they were removed. The bitterness and graininess was clear in the skin of the red ones, less in the orange, but the orange were more mealy overall.
I don’t grow this fruit variety, I don’t think it would adapt well to my very arid climate conditions, but there are a lot of varieties.
This English nursery has three pages of Cornus Kousa varieties.
yeah, there are tons of them in the bay area. Makes sense theyd grow well where their fellow arbutus, madrone, also thrives. A. Unendo is another one of those fruits that is roughly edible though as often maligned for poor texture and lack of flavor. I find them tasty, myself. They have a vaguely similar quality of grittiness and goopiness as Cornus kousa. I was pleased to find some trailing arbutus growing nearby recently. Also a cool plant, though not edible in any way afaik
Ive wanted to grow a kousa or two for a while. Itd be nice to get a really tasty prolific one. There is scant info out there regarding fruit quality from what Ive seen, so glad to read everyone’s descriptions and recommendations!
I’ve tasted quite a number of Kousa fruits, and they’ve ranged from OK to pretty good. It’s in my “nibble out of curiousity” list of things and not “serious fruit crop.” I do think there is some potential for a real fruit crop with some breeding effort. I suspect it’ll take more generations than I’ll be around for, so it’d need to be someone looking at the long game.
I like the idea of it being done, but I’d have to win a serious lottery for me to try to intentionally improve the gentics on anything. I’ve placed enough stuff next to each other that I might yield an accident if someone else grows out the seed. LOL
If I had one of the good ones, I would eat enough to be pleased. The next door neighbor’s is not good enough to walk that extra 50 feet to the tree that is fully loaded again.
why does the middling stuff always seem to bear like crazy?
Id guess there might even be worthwhile fruiting kousas out there. We wouldn’t know, since it seems no one has bothered to make note or catalog them in any way. Perhaps that says something about the gustatory value of kousa, but for something totally unimproved, it seems remarkably good. Im not looking to bootstrap breed em by any means, but just knowing one or two worth growing doesn’t seem an unreasonable bar. Providence has probably played as much role as any human intention in crop improvement, Id wager.
I’m not sure I’d truly give that one middling status. I could see it being used to extend a pear juice or an apricot jam because it was more texture than flavor. If it has any health benefit at all, it could soften something like a seaberry. But all those seeds…The ripe ones are soft enough that juicing them might be simple enough.
I ended up having to go through the town I found the one I liked in today. Half the fruits are gone, especially where you could reach them. Not many had thought to shake the branches though, so I snagged a few more and some cuttings. Not sure mid-fruit bear is a good time to try to take cuttings for rooting, but nothing lost to try. I’m certain it’s way to early to try for scionwood and I have nothing to put it on anyway, but I know where it is.
I have been looking for this variety for years. So far, I can’t find anyone in the US who specifically mentions Teutonia. Any leads? I’ve just spent hours looking.
Looks like its popular in the UK and probably not available in the states. Ken Asmus of Oikos Tree Crops speaks highly of ‘Miss Satori’ or perhaps of some seedlings thereof that he grew out. Ive only eaten from a 1/2 dozen trees, but Id say 2 or 3 of them were flavorful and enjoyable to eat. The others weren’t bad either, really. If anyone lives near a botanical garden or arboretum, itd be worth a trip to sample some fruits when in season. Arnold Arboretum has a huge dogwood section with tons of kousas. Ditto the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. Someone here needs to pull a David Fairchild for the benefit of science! I certainly will if the opportunity ever presents
Much appreciated! Thank you for taking the time for such a thorough response. I often thought that that would be the way I should take vacations: center them around botanical gardens…that, or classes in areas of interest. As it is, I don’t take vacations, nor have I felt the need; it’s so beautiful here and there’s just too much dang work needing doing!
Sure thing. When Im traveling, my activities often center around botanical exploration of one kind or another. But being in say Arnold Arboretum during kousa season would take some actual planning. Youre in Middlebury, so you might consider poking around the campus. Kousa is tree you’d be apt to find there. Some colleges have their specimen trees cataloged in a publicly viewable database. You may be able to access that through the University Library system. If you’re ever down that way, Smith College has such a database. Its campus is an arboretum of sorts, and was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. They have lots of cool stuff including a century old conservatory, one of the original and therefore largest Metasequoias in the US, and (it so happens) a bunch of kousas.
Good thoughts! I have a Kousa, and the fruit is lovely, although a bit smaller than I know it can be. I have already checked the Middlebury College campus tree map, although I’m not too sure how often it is updated or how accurate it may be. Smith sounds beautiful and I love conservatories. If I ever win Powerball…
I’ve planted with a long season in mind. I have numerous paw paws, American persimmons, che, medlars and even apples, pears, kiwi and quince for the later months, so I really don’t need another Kousa! Because of a late freeze this past year, a lot of the fruit never formed, including it. No Concord grapes, peaches, etc. which was so disappointing. The year started with drought, and then once June came, it seems it rained every day…and it’s still raining, which is crazy in January. Hoping for better timing this year, although with the crazy winds and other anomalies, I still worry. In three days, I had two beautiful evergreens’ tops snap and about 100’ of stockade fencing blow down–the posts are going every which way. We had two storms in a span of three days where the wind was over 75 mph. Scary stuff.