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Kousa Dogwood (Cornus kousa) |
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Himalayan Dogwood (Cornus capitata) |
The fun thing about urban foraging is
that you have a chance to find plants from all over the world. Recently when I
was walking through my neighborhood I spotted a dogwood with huge bright red
fruit that reminded me of a tree that I saw 9 years ago in the Himalayan
foothills of Central Nepal. I was just
starting a year of ethnobotanical work with Langtang National Park and went for a
hike on a trail that led out of the village and up into the mountains. I came
across two 10th grade boys walking down the trail carrying sacks of
wheat. We got to chatting and I followed them to the water powered stone mill
and watched them as they ground their wheat into flour. Afterwards we started talking
about plants—at least as much as my rudimentary understanding of Nepali would
allow—and I asked them about the large fruits that were scattered along the
trail. They said they were called gulna
(Cornus capitata) and that they could
be eaten fresh, but I shouldn’t eat the ones that had fallen on the ground,
which was too bad because there weren’t any left on the tree.
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Heavy fruit production on this Kousa Dogwood |
Ever since then I have always wondered
what those Himalayan Dogwood fruits taste like. The fruits before me looked virtually
identical, but after some botanical sleuthing, I determined that they were Kousa
Dogwood (Cornus kousa), which are deciduous
whereas those on Himalayan Dogwood are evergreen. Kousa Dogwood is native to
China, Korea, and Japan. The fruit looks something like a strawberry, a pink soccer
ball on a stick, or a sea urchin skeleton. Kousa Dogwood fruit is made up of 20-40
pinkish-orangish red fleshy carpels that are all fused together in a spherical
arrangement atop a 3-4 inch long stem.
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Nice ripe Kousa Dogwood fruit |
Throughout their native range, Kousa
Dogwood fruit are eaten fresh or fermented to make wine. The landowner allowed
me to sample a few and I found that they have a soft creamy texture and sweet
flavor similar to papaya. However, the skins are slightly coarse and mildly
bitter, so I have learned to break them open and suck out the pulp.
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A few minutes picking |
Yesterday, Katrina and I picked a couple
quarts of Kousa Dogwood to experiment more with and I learned that unripe fruit
tend to have more orange colored skin, have pulp that is white and firm instead
of orange and soft, and most notably, lack the sweet flavor of ripe fruit. A
few fruits had hard seeds that are about the size of a Chokecherry pit, but
contrary to my reading about this fruit, we did not find them to be particularly
seedy, having found only 3 seeds in the 2 quarts that we collected.
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Fruit mill making nice Kousa pulp |
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Spoon method |
We started processing our Kousa Dogwood fruit
by breaking them in half and scooping the sweet flesh out with a spoon, but
soon tired of this and turned to my Squeezo fruit mill for assistance. The raw fruit
went through the mill easily, but the few seeds that we came across were too
large to fit through the auger and required several hard cranks to break them
up and force them through.
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The ground was covered with fruit |
Our Kousa Dogwood pulp is juicy and
sweet and a welcomed addition to the daily smoothie. Next time we pick Kousa Dogwood
we will lay a tarp under the tree and shake it so that we only collect ripe
fruit that are ready to fall off.
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Wow! Beautiful fruit. I have so much fun learning about unusual edibles in the landscaped gardens. Would the smaller fruits of other dogwood varieties be edible too? I know of a pink flowering dogwood that produces some small fruit
ReplyDeleteThese look delicious! I'm very happy to have found your page.
ReplyDeleteSo much to be learned!
I think other dogwood fruit are worth cautious tastes. Our native Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) has similar composite fruit but I can find no ethnobotanical literature on their use as a food by Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Of course, Bunch-berry (Cornus canadensis) is edible and has nice flavor (but seedy). Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea) berries are dried and eaten by the Thompson and Nitinaht in British Columbia. I haven't tried them dried yet, but fresh I find them to be very bitter.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I was wondering about the edibility of my Pacific Northwest variety; I will just look at how pretty they are! :)
DeleteAmazing Abe!! What color is the flower of the Kousa Dogwood? The fruit looks huge... The picture of the Himalayan Dogwood looks similar to the Pacific Dogwood don't you think? I can't wait for our Christmas get together, Henry looks to have the making of a little botanist! He can identify the Douglas Fir and on a good day also the Live Oak, Madrone and California Bay tree. He knows Rosemary, Lavender, boxwood and much more!
ReplyDeleteSee you soon,
Love, Rachel
The ones in a friend's yard flower with a soft ivory color.
DeleteThank you for this great info--I have one of these in the backyard of the house I just bought in Maine and had no clue what it was. Now I can't wait to play!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. So the gist of it is you took ripe fruit, processed them through a pulp-extractor, then added the pulp to a smoothie?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about how to best use these fruit, and now I know much more about how to do it. I wonder why foraging books don't focus more on these abundant fruit.
Sam Schaperow
P.S. Check out PlantForagers (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PlantForagers/).
Has anyone made a jelly out of the fruit?
ReplyDeleteI picked a bunch today and plan on making jelly tomorrow.
DeleteI tried but it went poorly. I might try better again this year if I get a squeezo or something. I think I tried just putting them all in and straining everything (COOKED) through a cheese cloth, and it worked, but I think (hope) the skin and seeds caused a weird taste. It had almost a tea taste to it.
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ReplyDeleteI love your blog! I've seen this tree around restaurants before, I had heard that they were 'non-edible' so I never tried them. I've seen these advertised as 'strawberry bushes', but the catalogs never mention that you can eat them. Thank you so much for the awesome and unusual food sources! Too bad Euell Gibbons didn't include these as a possible food source.
ReplyDeleteI have a white flowering dogwood with berries (like the Kousa Dogwood) dropping all over my patio. I live in Oregon and didn't know these were edible!!! I'm embarassed to say that I've been throwing these berries into the yard debris container for years, yikes. I'd like to know 'for sure' these are indeed edible, may need to consult a local nursery. Thank you for your blog, most interesting and informative, ha!
ReplyDeleteIf the berries look like the image of a Kousa Dogwood berry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_kousa#/media/File:Cornus_kousa_fruits.jpg - then they are probably Kousa berries and they are delicious! To tell for sure, pick a red, squish berry and open the skin. If the inside is a light orange, slimy pulp and has a sweet, tropical taste then it is a Kousa. The berries have lots of small, woody seeds which you can spit out or strain the pulp through your teeth. There are recipes online to make jelly - probably the best use of the fruit.
Deletewill the fruit ripen after picking.
ReplyDeleteCan I feed them to my chickens? I have five very large Kousas. They keep reseeding them selves
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Thanks so much for posting this. I live in Michigan and was standing talking to my neighbors in their yard, and noticed the beautiful fruit. Being somewhat adventurous, I picked one, and broke it open and licked it. It reminded me, and everyone else who tried them, of a peach. Before we ate any we decided to research them and found this. Now you have two happy families in Michigan that will probably be eating those berries for years to come.
ReplyDeleteFound 2 Kousa dogwood trees at a local park in South West Michigan and my research I wound up on this site. The berries are delicious and tastes of peach and papaya. 10/10/17
ReplyDeleteNever thought to check if these were edible! Have a huge tree I planted years ago ... all that wasted fruit :(
ReplyDeleteLast year i used them to make a desert type bread/cake, using a banana bread recipe. It was wuite good, tedious eithou a mill.
ReplyDeleteIt was quite good though a tedious process without a food mill. (Sorry my fingers are too large)
ReplyDeleteI found several Kousa dogwood trees in Perryville, MD which is between Deleware and Baltimore, MD. To my surprise, I did not know what type trees or fruit, I'd never seen these before but I knew the fruit looked strange. So I picked up one from the ground and did my research. I like the taste, and I'm going back tomorrow to get a lot more, look up some recipes to prepare with them.
ReplyDeleteI found several Kousa dogwood trees in Perryville, MD which is between Deleware and Baltimore, MD. To my surprise, I did not know what type trees or fruit, I'd never seen these before but I knew the fruit looked strange. So I picked up one from the ground and did my research. I like the taste, and I'm going back tomorrow to get a lot more, look up some recipes to prepare with them.
ReplyDeletePick-em , pop em the mouth ,squish em , suck the pulp , spit the skin and seeds. Not too complicated ...(-; (-:
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of these trees in my school courtyard. My dad told me about these. After I showed my friends this article they finally believed me, and now they pull down a branch if they're hungry XD
ReplyDeleteHello. This is a great combination of berries gives just the same peace of mind, I would say that it's great and you know it soothes me, because until recently I had some disorder associated with a lot of work and I was often subject to stress and there were even outbreaks of aggression. My doctor recommended cbd oil for anxiety for me and it helps me.
ReplyDeleteMy Pekingese has been eaten these little things from the ground, I can’t say they’ve been the best for his belly..
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ReplyDeleteI think I have this tree but my fruit is hard as a rock. I cant see how anyone can do anything with them. The tree flowers a bright pink in spring. Live in Maryland
ReplyDeleteI’m curious why birds and animals don’t eat the fruit. We have a tree loaded with fruit and none has been eaten as far as I can tell.
ReplyDelete