After spending many years finding and picking fruit throughout the Atlanta area, we’re starting to get a handle on how to identify trees, and it’s something we want to share as best we can, because it’s fun and it makes the world more interesting. Once you’re able to identify trees, it lets you pick up on one further detail of the world, and formerly mundane details begin to jump out at you. It’s also just neat to identify a tree by its flowers in the Spring and then see the appearance of small fruits a few months later.
This is not meant to be a guide for botanists. As much as we like trees, we’re not botanists and we couldn’t really tell you if a tree has pinnate leaves, dentate leaves, or both. Think of it more as a “5 seconds to look at it as you drive past” guide. It should also be noted that a lot of other things do grow around Atlanta. These are many of the high points of remarkable and common finds, with more to come in the future as we continue to discover new gems in this city.
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Apples
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It should be noted that apples growing on the street are going to be very different from store apples, as touched upon in both Sue Hubbell’s Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes as well as Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire. The basic concept is that apples have an uneven number of chromosome pairs, and this makes apple seedlings possess a strange combination of traits not necessarily present in the parent. Planting that Fuji apple seed will not give you a Fuji tree.
But that’s part of the excitement…every tree is a little different. Some trees produce the biggest, juiciest apples you’ve ever seen but with almost no flavor. Some produce small apples that taste like they were bought from a supermarket. And some produce apples that are so sour you spit them out instantly and want to scrape your tongue to get rid of the taste. There’s a good article on local apple varieties in Saveur #123. And for the South in particular, Creighton Lee Calhoun, Jr. has published the bible of local apple information, fittingly called Old Southern Apples.
Identification
Apple trees are easily identified by two distinguishing features. The first is that they have characteristic leaves: the face of the leaf almost always upward, and the edges of the leaf also curl upwards, revealing the lighter shade of green on the backside of the leaf.
The second feature is that apple trees are just kind of scraggly. They tend to look like large bushes instead of trees, and they require a lot of pruning. Unpruned trees (as we find 99% of the time) will have a large amount of branches and twigs growing on the inside of the tree. They will also often have many small patches of brown, dead leaves which are easily visible in contrast to the rest of the tree.
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Almost all of the pears found in Atlanta are there because someone planted them. There’s therefore a lot less variety than the apples, but that also means pears are more reliable, and in many cases, more disease-resistant. They will last a lot longer than apples.
Identification
Pear trees actually look very similar to apples. The one main thing that separates them is that pear trees tend to be extremely lanky. They have very spindly branches that tend to droop over, and the effect is moreso pronounced when they get heavy with fruit.
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Atlanta peaches and nectarines have a couple things working against them. If you manage to find them before the animals do or before they fall, they still tend to be pretty scrawny. You can get plenty of them, but hard to get much meat on them….maybe they need a good dose of pruning/pesticides to fatten up. The peaches are likewise readily attacked by pests, while nectarines seem quite a bit more resistant.
Identification
By far the most identifying characteristic of peach and nectarine trees are their leaves: long, slender, drooping, and curled inward along their length, sometimes extensively. The curl is usually the dead giveaway. In general the trees don’t get very large — usually a stepladder would be all that is necessary.
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Many of the serviceberries found in Atlanta are there thanks to the generous efforts of Trees Atlanta. This is the reason so many of them are found on roadsides (along Highland, just north of North Ave; at the southwest corner of Freedom Parkway and Highland; along McLendon by Candler Park…) within the city, and you should take advantage of this, because serviceberries are really, really good. In the official, notarized opinion of Concrete Jungle, they taste most similar to a blueberry. And in light of how comparatively rare and expensive blueberries are, it is our contention that the serviceberry abundance only adds to their deliciousness. There’s really nothing quite like stuffing your face with a handful of fresh-picked berries.
Identification
By far the easiest way to identify serviceberry trees is when they are fruiting. The unripe berries are white in color, and they get progressively redder and darker until they’re finally dark purple and delicious.
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The variety most commonly found in Atlanta turns dark brown/purple upon ripening. It also becomes especially delicate, saggy, and prone to falling long distances to the ground, whereupon it explodes open. Although it is hard to say for sure, they most commonly look like common figs. There are also varieties that maintain their green/yellowish color throughout ripeness, resembling a Calimyrna variety. And the figs at the OK Cafe in northwest Atlanta (#92 on the food map), are the only known to Concrete Jungle to turn very dark purple/black on ripening, resembling the Mission variety. There is an excellent article in Smithsonian magazine about pursuit of local fig varieties in Georgian (Eastern Europe) fruit markets.
Identification
Absolutely the most identifiable fruit tree in Atlanta: figs are everywhere, and have huge, distinct leaves. The trees provide dense canopy and tend to grow outwards in all directions if unpruned. If you’re new to identifying trees, start with figs and you’ll soon see them on just about every street corner. As much as Georgia wants to hold on to its image as the peach state, it’s common knowledge that South Carolina has since taken those reins, and I hereby nominate the fig as the new successor.
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There are two varieties of persimmon found in Atlanta: the native persimmon, Diospyros virginiana and the Asian persimmon, Diospyros kaki. The native persimmon is small, no more than an inch and a half in diameter, and the Asian persimmons are everything else. We personally find the native persimmons to taste better, but they do require much more effort in picking and eating.
Although it’s pretty unlikely to happen, eating unripe persimmons can cause a bezoar, whereby the tannins in the persimmon polymerize in your gut and form a big mass that cannot be passed. They can require surgical intervention, but also apparently drinking lots of Coke will do the trick, as evidenced by a paper recently published in Equine Veterinary Education titled “Successful treatment for a gastric persimmon bezoar in a pony using nasogastric lavage with a carbonated cola soft drink“.
Identification
The persimmon is one of those trees most easily identified when fruiting, and even then it can be difficult, because the fruits ripen in mid-autumn through winter, turning from green to orange along much of the same schedule as its foliage.
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Muscadines are closely related to grapes, and have a somewhat similar taste. They have a thick, sour skin and several seeds. They are highly prized. There is also a light-skinned relative of the muscadine known as the scuppernong, but those are not commonly found in the wild.
Identification
The muscadine vine is about as pervasive as the mulberry, fig or pecan tree, but seldom found is the fruit itself. It is very similar to other grapevine species in terms of leaf shape, and in our experience is often found at edges of wooded areas: trees near a sidewalk or road, the edges of your local park, etc. Since there are so many vines and so few of them produce fruit, it is often easiest to spot them by looking on the ground for fruit or stains. The thick skin and light weight of the muscadine makes it the most durable of fruits growing in Atlanta, and fruits can fall from very high without suffering any damage.
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As touched upon in this post, the flying dragon is not readily appreciated, but has a lot of potential. It’s small, full of seeds and sour as, but it’s got a great, unique taste. Seriously yuzu…we’re coming for you.
Identification
Flying Dragon is very easily recognized by the huge claws coming out from the plant in all directions. Often resembles a brambly bush unless the owner has taken care of it. Supposedly it’s used as a form of natural barbed wire. The fruit looks like a bright yellow golf ball and has a great citrus/pine smell to it.
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The mulberry is perhaps the most ubiquitous fruit to Atlanta, and is probably 2nd most ubiquitous edible in general, after pecans. There are two varieties of mulberries in Atlanta: the black and the white. The black mulberry is generally sweeter and much more abundant. Like its name implies, it is black/dark purple in color when ripe. The white mulberries undergo no color change when ripe. They are partly a product of Georgia’s 18th century silk industry, whereby the white mulberry was imported and grown in order to feed the foliage to silkworms.
Both types of mulberries can be hit or miss. They’re not as bad as blackberries, and generally the worst mulberries are simply watery and tasteless. If you’re making a jam or jelly you can probably save even the worst mulberry.
Identification
Only one thing you need to know.
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The prickly pear is still a very experimental fruit for us. Its spiny coverage makes harvest and eating difficult, and the fruit as-is is not particularly tasty. But we still know very little about it, and they are quite plentiful around Atlanta in late September.
Identification
The prickly pear is easily identified — it is the maroon-dark purple fruit found on the many cacti growing in yards around Atlanta. Since Atlanta is not typically home to cacti, it appears that there is only one (or at least very few) variety of prickly pear growing in Atlanta.
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The maypop is a North American relative of the passionfruit. How enticing right? An exotic delicacy like passionfruit growing in Atlanta! Like the passionfruit, the edible part of the maypop is the flesh surrounding the seeds. Where things start to fall apart is that, unlike the passionfruit, most maypops are duds. The vast majority of fruits are green sacs filled with air, and these sacs ‘may pop’ if trampled underfoot.
The maypop is mostly a legend. The kind of thing that fruit people know about, but never had. We at Concrete Jungle have a standing offer of crowning King/Queen of the Concrete Jungle ye who brings us a maypop.
Identification
The leaves are unique if you’re looking for them, but by far the best way is by the flower – it’s incredibly beautiful, intricate, and perhaps most importantly, not green. Maypops tend to grow in roadside bramble, and even the fruits will blend in with surroundings. That flower is unmistakeable though.
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The pawpaw is a member of an elite group of highly-prized two-syllable fruits, with the other members being the maypop and the mayhaw. As science has to date produced neither hawpop or pawhaw, we will have to be content with this group being a trifecta for now. Seldom found is the delicious and perishable fruit of the pawpaw, despite the tree being native and widespread throughout northern Georgia. The fruit has a mellow flavor similar to that of a mango and/or peach, and is sought after by man and forest creature alike (see also The Ohio Pawpaw Festival). NPR has an update from September of 2011 on the the quest for commercial cultivation.
Identification
Look for large, oval/teardrop-shaped leaves, coming off of the branch in an alternating fashion. Even the biggest pawpaw trees don’t get main trunks larger than about 6″ in diameter.
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Blackberries grow everywhere in Atlanta, and Georgia in general. They grow in sunny, brambly areas along roadsides, and within Atlanta they are such a miss that it’s not even hit or miss. Maybe its the soil conditions or the variety that grows in the city, but if you want good blackberries you should head out of the city to at least Roswell, if not north Georgia.
Identification
