Natural History Notes: persimmon trees and briar patches

I was questioned about how I could walk into a briar patch dense enough to hide a persimmon tree. The answer is, it depends on the briars, and the way in which the tree is hidden. In the north pasture at the Ridge there has always been a central patch of woods, referred to by Isabel as the persimmon grove. I have known for some time of a group of persimmon trees on the east (upper) side of the trees, though in the main, the grove is hackberry, ash, oak, plum, etc. But these known 'simmon trees are all male, and thus non-bearing.

In the last three decades or so, the pasture was invaded by blackberries, to where the western half got to be almost solid with them. In the nineties, Nolan fought his little old tractor through and made a path near the west fence, which I kept open for several seasons, but of late it became solid briarpatch again. Between the central grove and the west fence, scattered among the brambles, are a good many smallish trees that like damper conditions, as this is where the drainage runs. Besides the other species mentioned, there are willow, cottonwood, pecan -- none very large except for the huge pecan in the northwest corner, Pines from the Holmans’ property are moving in at the southwest corner.

In the spring of 2009, Eddie and Stephen performed herculean labors and mowed down almost all of the blackberries on the west side, leaving a crunchy, spiky “mulch” some inches thick of chopped up half-inch canes. That was a very dry year, and there was very little regrowth except in the southwest corner, nearest the tank. This spring, they fairly easily re-mowed it, except in that same corner, where standing water (it was a VERY wet spring) defeated them.

I would never have tried to walk into the remnants of the original head-high thicket! I’m not sure even rabbits can fit into that. But the regrowth area looks deceptively possible to move through. NOT. Sunday afternoon I mowed a section by the female persimmon tree, and the contrast between the mowed part and the remainder makes it more clear how much of a thicket it really is.

Besides the scrawny little persimmon tree in the center of this picture, I also found a few more, based on the bark appearance. One of them appeared to have a single little round fruit hanging on a branch, way up where I couldn’t really see for sure what it was. It was a tree about twice the size of the one that I’m certain of.