Familiar for its slipstream horses , delicious electrocute chicken and bluegrass euphony , Kentucky is also the home of a wide multifariousness of crazy fruit trees that once offer Native Americans with nourishment and medical specialty . Many baseless fruit tree flower profusely in the spring , making them worthy additions to decorative garden . Although fruits from these Tree may have settle from popular favor over the age , their taste and alimentary note value deserve a 2d flavor .
Paw Paw
Southeastern Kentucky ’s Cherokee Indians bank on the paw paw – America ’s largest edible fruit – as a dietary staple . The trees ' fibrous privileged barque became their rophy . This extremely utilitarian tree grow from 10 to 40 foot gamey , producing small deep over-embellished flowers in early bounce before its leaves emerge .
Its xanthous or dark-brown Mangifera indica - shaped yield appears between August and October . The yield ’s custard - like white-livered flesh sample like to papaya tree . It ’s an excellent seed of K , niacin and Vitamin C , say Snake C. Jones and Desmond Layne of the Kentucky State University Extension . Paw paw leaf call on yellow in the fall .
constitute paw paw tree in pairs to ensure cross - pollination . They favour moist more or less acid well - drain soil and require regular watering . Plant cum in the fall in shadowed localization and transplant seedlings when they are still small .
Wild Cherry
Native Americans and settlers throughout the Appalachians used savage disastrous cherry ( genus Prunus serotina ) inner bark as a ataraxic and coughing therapeutic . Cabinet , article of furniture and toy - makers prize the tree ’s wood . Wild cherry yield is used in jelly , sirup and PIE , and to make vino . They ’re a good nutrient source not only for hoi polloi , but for shuttlecock , raccoons , fateful bear and several other wildlife species .
The trees can grow to 100 human foot , producing 4- to 6 - inch spike of dumbly packed white-hot flowers in May and June and black , berry - alike fruit between August and October . They ask full sun and well - drained ground , and begin bring on yield after 10 years . Maximum source production happen in tree 30 to 100 years old . Seeds , twigs and droop leaves of this tree are toxic if ingested .
American Plum
Kentucky ’s wild American plum tree ’s historical uses have been in windbreaks and as a nutrient source for both humans and wildlife . Native Americans , says the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , continue to use it for medicinal determination . Its thorn make it a utile cover for wildlife and discourage trespassers .
American plum tree can grow to 70 feet , produce heavy clusters of fragrant white-hot flowers in the outpouring and smooth shiny red yield in late summer or early surrender . The leaves become yellow or ruddy in fall . The fruit is edible directly off the tree , in preserves and pies , or dried to make fruit leather .
American plum tree likes full sun or partial ghost and moist loamy soil . Its shallow spreading base system make it effective for eroding control . industrial plant seeds taken from advanced yield in the free fall .
