Design

I saw a really unusual tree yesterday. It was in the Hydrangea Garden (and part of our Specialty Collection) at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. On a short and felicitous tour, with a visiting former alum (and well-known horticulture expert) and a couple of Horticulture faculty, our Garden manager (James Arnold) showed us a Japanese Raisin Tree ( Hovera dulcis ) that he'd obtained from renowned SC plant collector (Bob McCartney of Woodlanders, Inc. in Aiken, SC). Maybe I'd seen this tree before, and didn't really notice it. James said that Bob had told him that it was edible. We gingerly tested it, and it WAS sweet, but what was remarkable to me was that what was edible wasn't the fruits, but a fleshy and succulent peduncle (the base of a flower and fruit). In fall, the edible peduncles become sweet and dark, as the actual fruits have ripened and become dry and bear one or two seeds (they're the greyish capsules projecting from the fleshy peduncles). I was cu...