Yes, you might want to avoid those unripe persimmons too...serious pucker
power!
Steven A. Ellis
Kennesaw, GA
At 09:13 AM 11/19/01 -0600, you wrote:
>Last week a group of us were collecting in the Ouachita River (near Hot
>Springs, Arkansas) where we saw a profusion of spiney, shrubby trees
>bearing large numbers of a golfball-size, lemon-like fruit. None of us had
>seen this tree before but it looked a lot like some citrus trees do when
>grown from seed. Three of us sampled the fruit (and yes, we should have
>known better). It tasted like lemon, but with a bitter aftertaste. A
>botanist later identified it as a species of Chinese citrus called "hardy
>orange." Hardy orange (Poncirus trifoliata)is used as stock for grafting
>commercial varieties of oranges and lemons and as ornamental plants (one
>variety with twisted stems is called "the flying dragon"). It is also used
>to form impenetrable hedges. The fruit is mildly poisonous (some references
>indicate that the seeds and roots are poisonous). The hardy orange is
>apparently widely distributed throughout the southeast but this was the
>first time any of us recalled seeing it. It may not grow commonly in
>riparian zones, but we saw it growing along the river banks a few meters
>from the water (and in some cases at water's edge).
>
>Distribution in US shown here:
>http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/topics.cgi
>
>Photographs and biology here:
>http://www.saalfelds.freeserve.co.uk/poncirus_nn4.htm
>
>Toxicity described here:
>http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/Poncitr.htm
>
>
>
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