#60 DATE PLUM
Diospyros lotus
County Champion
This tree is in the Chinese and Japanese section near the Park Drive fence.
| Distribution: | Native to south-west Asia and widely naturalised in Japan and China, the Himalayas and westwards. Occasionally planted in Britain. |
| Planting Date: | Bought from W Clibran & Sons, Oldfield Nursery, Altringham Cheshire in 1920 and planted here in 1921 |
| Appearance: | Small deciduous tree. |
| Growth Habit: | Narrowly domed or spreading. |
| Bark: | Grey or pink-tinged when young, becoming dark, broken by fissures into small rough oblong plates when mature. |
| Leaf: | Ovate to lanceolate with pointed tips and entire margins. Very dark glossy green above, greyer below. Young leaves slightly downy above. Remaining green into Autumn and winter. |
| Flowers: | Male and female flowers do not grow on the same tree. This male tree has small, urn-shaped, flowers with four coral tipped petals fixed firmly in 4 glossy green sepals and tightly clustered against green leaf twigs. Female flowers are burgundy brown and slightly larger (5 mm) bell-shaped with 4 strongly re-curved petals framed by a saucer of four expanded sepals. A female tree #P2 can be found at map ref N6/7. |
| Fruit: | Small gooseberry-shaped fruits, on the female tree, sit closely against the branch with the drying sepals persistent while they go from greenish yellow to blue- black, at which point they are edible. They can be dried to taste like date. |
| Toxicity: | Edible only at the point of going bad. |
| Tree size in April 2023: | To 16 m Height: 14 m and girth 93 cm |
| Uses: | In China the buds, flowers and fruit pods are used to clear fevers, stop bleeding and control dizziness. Flowers used to treat high blood pressure. Pods yield yellow fabric dye. Wood is durable, pliable, resists rot. Used in construction and general carpentry. |
| Plant Hunter: | French Jesuit priest, Pierre Nicholas le Cheron d’Incarville, gave precious seed to a Russian caravan to bring them back to Europe circa 1747. The first seeds were successfully germinated in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. |
| Introduction Date: | Known by 1597 in East Asia. The first trees appeared in England in 1753. |
| Comments: | A member of the Ebony family. Rated by height and girth ‘County Champion’ by The Tree Register in April 2023. |