Those who are more familiar with d.virgiana, could you please take a look at photos below and see if you can identify? These trees are sprouting after a clearing this winter at a friends in South Carolina. Some have redish leaves, some fully green.
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Yes
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All of these pictures look like D. virginiana to me
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I planted seed of wild American Persimmon last fall… they are doing well. Hope to use these for rootstock eventually.
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Thanks @Barkslip, @ncdabbler and @TNHunter
Any idea why some have a reddish color and others don’t?
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Not all do, but some do which are very attractive trees in my landscape…
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Most seem to have at least some reddish color in the newest leaves. The differences are probably due to the vigor of the plant and how quickly new leaves are growing. I’ve noticed that the native persimmon trees here in NC look like your pictures with glossy new leaves, but that the root suckers of some of my grafted persimmon trees have more fuzz on the new leaves. Lee Reich wrote that this was a distinguishing feature between the 90 chromosome northern type (fuzzy new leaves) and the 60 chromosome southern type (glossy new leaves). But others with more persimmon experience than I have contested this and say there’s no way to visually distinguish between the two types. My point is not to agree with either side but just to say that I’ve seen some variety in the appearance of new persimmon leaves.
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I seem to see red and red-orange (leaves) on really big leaves; cultivars with big leaves…
‘Dr. Kazas’ has orange-red growth from a graft that didn’t have good rootstock vigor until this year where it finally grew 2-feet or so and the leaves are orange-red still… so that ‘one’ Kazas has beautiful growth (both times it pushes growth per season.)
I really need to watch it more precisely which I’ll attempt to do.
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I have a redbud cultivar in our yard that starts with yellow leaves that eventually turn the normal green. It creates a very cool hombre pattern towards mid summer while pushing new growth. If a persimmon had similar features only in red, I imagine it would be a very pretty tree.
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Juvenile trees often produce anthocyanin (red/orange) in growing leaves. Most juglandacea (pecan, walnut, etc) have this trait. When the tree changes from juvenile to adult reproductive phase, the red colors usually disappear.
D4, I was at NCSU in 2011 and a grad student was doing a program breeding for intense red leaves on redbud trees. I saw about 1000 seedlings a few inches tall a few of which were intense deep red. I wanted so much to bring one home!
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