However, an online friend who happens to live 30 miles from me happened across a jujube tree in a city park near where he lives. Just to be sure of the identification, and to get some seeds, I asked him to send me a twig and a baggy of well-ripened fruit.

Jujube Fruit

The fruit itself was an olfactory delight. It was a bit over-ripe and has a rich smell of nectar or honey coming out of the ziplock he sent them to me in. They’re beyond the ripeness of what I’d eat so I can’t comment on their taste, but they look like a good snack – similar in look and size to a plum.

Jujube cut open, revealing crisp green flesh.

The flesh of the fruit is a crispy green, with a small pit in the center. The flesh clings tightly to the pit so I did not get a good image of it unfortunately. I’ll allow the flesh to dissolve from the pit and try to get a picture of it then. Okay, I couldn’t resist a taste. From the outside it looked like something I didn’t want to eat – but it looked pretty good once I cut it open. However, from my understanding it’s best to pick these fruit before it gets all wrinkled. The flesh tastes like a semi-sweet apple, with similar texture too. Not overbearingly sweet, but not overly bland either. From my understanding, these fruit are good to eat right off the tree as well as good when used in recipes for the likes of cobblers and jellies. I look forward to experimenting with the culinary possibilities with this fruit once I have producing trees.

Jujube twig.

The twigs he sent me were invaluable in identification. Their alternating leaves are very distinctive, having three main veins coming from the sinus and then side-veins off the main veins. Upper sides of leaves are a rich dark green while the undersides are a pale green. They’re oval in shape with just a slight hip at the sinus and they have a very slight serration on their edges.

Between the fruit and twigs, the identification is pretty conclusive. When compared to online images like those at Dave’s Garden and information at the likes of Tradewinds Fruit, Wikipedia and CRFG Publications it’s without a doubt jujube. The seeds won’t produce true to type, but since there’s not much of a jujube market here, I’ll take what I can get and will definitely attempt to get these seeds to sprout. I’ll stratify them in moist soil in the fridge for a few months then set them out for sprouting and wait. Future posts will hopefully document this so stay tuned.

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post