Unusual Tree Fruit - Fruits in Aug-Sep in Portland OR

9 years ago

Have more Pics than what allowed to post. Will post photobucket link later (if I allowed to edit text after message posted). Otherwise, email me for other pics.

Tree at least 10ft tall, ab 5ft or more spread, bark grayish-brownish & some peeling light grayish. I forgot to feel the bark for texture, but it may have been smoothish.
Leaves are green on front, lighter green on underside, up to 3 1/2" long, up to 1 3/8" at widest, wavy, shallow-toothed, longish, tapered tip, are set in pairs & threes. I don't know the "official" label for the leaf shape & growth.
Fruits in Aug-Sep in Portland OR. I think they start out green. Then they turn bluish, then pinkish-reddish.
No idea when flowers or what the flowers look like, as only found it when fruits on it.
When ripe, pinkish-reddish, one inch dia, round fruits fall off easily when disturbed. They hang singly, on a long, up to 3 1/2 inch stem, near ends of branches. Fruit is sparse in production.
Outer flesh is thin & soft, with 32 indented pips all around circumference, & a ridged top around where stem attaches.
Inner flesh is is light orange, creamy & juicy with what at first looked like small white seeds, but upon further squishing the flesh, they were not.
It has a small, single, hard seed in the middle, 5mm wide, 6mm long & 4mm thick, the color of an uncooked garbanzo bean/chickpea.
Fruit has a slight, sweetish, cucumber, grassy smell. Did not taste it, as not know if edible, let alone if poisonous.

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Comments (6)

IanW Zone 5 Ont. Can.
9 years ago
Chinese flowering dogwood......
NHBabs z4b-5a NH
9 years ago
AKA Cornus kousa
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missingtheobvious
9 years ago
The fruit are edible:
http://www.eattheweeds.com/cornus-kousa-a-dog-gone-good-dogwood-2/
larry_gene
9 years ago
Showy white flowers here in mid-late spring. The fruit does not have enough flavor or easily-processed uses to justify it as a food source in my opinion. It does however make a mess of sidewalks starting in late summer, forcing pedestrians to the streets to bypass the goo. It has become more common lately as a parking strip tree but is more suited to an interior landscape position well away from paths.
melphleg
Original Author
9 years ago
Cool! :^D
Thanks ppl.

Now that I know it's edible.....
Yummy. Sweeter than I thought it'd be.
A combo of sweet apple, persimmon, &...something else...vanilla maybe. I'd expect a a stronger burst of flavor if ate a bunch at once.
I had picked three fruits. two of them had only one seed. The bigger one had three seeds.

When I saw the fruit on the tree, the first thing that came to mind was the strawberry tree. Thot it may have been a variety of such, when opened the fruit, as flesh texture seemed similar to it.
Strawberry tree grows here in Portland, OR, too, & blooms & fruits at the same time in winter. The flesh of the fruit is a creamy texture, & a delicate, sweetish flavor,

This dogwood fruit is sweeter.
Not enuf flavor?! Tsk.
The fruit has enuf flavor for those tongues not seared by all the processed sugar-salt-deepfried-laden junk "food."
One's taste-buds are more discerning for the naturally-occurring flavors of food that grow on plants, rather than on a shelf in a store, once all that junk is cleared out of your system.

So, to me, the flavor is worth the eating. I think they'd be good (& sweeter) dried.
larry_gene
9 years ago
You may have found a dogwood variety developed specifically for fruit quality. The street trees in this neighborhood do not have quality fruit, and they are the vast majority of plantings of fruiting dogwoods.

Strawberry Tree fruit is quite variable, some do produce a mildly sweet fruit. I've eaten a fair number.

Drying those types of fruit might be easier by making a thin leather, mashing after seed removal.

Having a seared tongue, I can still enjoy my exotic fruits and common vegetables I grow on my city lot.