The Persimmon of the Botanic Garden

This tree cannot fruit by itself. Diospyros virginiana is dioecious, meaning each individual is either male or female, and only a female growing near a male will set fruit at all. The garden's own catalogue confirms the point and adds a use: the ripe orange fruit gets made into compotes locally, once it has softened past the sharp astringency the unripe fruit is known for. The species is native to the eastern United States. Valencia's specimen has reached 30.3 metres on a trunk 2.21 metres round, the slimmest trunk among the botanic garden's cluster of tall trees, with a narrow 10.8 metre crown to match, more upright than spreading. No planting record survives for it. The regional register lists it as a protected singular tree and measures the trunk; the garden's catalogue confirms the species grows in the Escola Botanica collection but, like its neighbours in this cluster, names the species rather than dating this individual. If you know when it went in, tell us. It grows a short walk from the Caucasian Elm and the Hartwiss Oak, in the same teaching collection where the university groups its trees by family rather than by size.