C-100 Common Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana 'C-100'
Bred by Illinois horticulturist James Claypool, 'C-100' brings exceptional fruit quality and formidable cold-hardiness to the native persimmon's already considerable virtues.
'C-100' is a cultivar of Diospyros virginiana selected for its large, excellent-flavored fruit that ripens in autumn to deep orange-red. Bred by the late James Claypool, it resembles 'Morris Burton' in taste and appearance but runs slightly larger. The tree can reach 60 feet in good conditions, with dark green foliage that holds its color well through summer before turning vivid shades of red and yellow in fall. It grows easily in full sun across a wide range of soils — moist and sandy preferred, but dry and poor tolerated — with a pH of 6.0 to 7.0.
Hardier than the Asian persimmons, it is suited to zones 5 through 9 and becomes genuinely drought-tolerant once its deep taproot establishes — which also makes transplanting from the wild impractical. Plant a grafted tree for fruit in three years rather than the decade or more that seedlings can require. The fruit is used in preserves, syrups, ice creams, and pies, while the leaves can be steeped for tea. The wood itself is famously hard — historically used for golf club heads and billiard cues — giving this native tree a material legacy as durable as its ornamental one.
C-100 Common Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana 'C-100'
Eastern Persimmon, Possumwood