Talk:Kousa Dogwood

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[edit] fruit description

While fruits of Cornus kousa are highly variable (mainly variable in regards to if they are picked when it is ripe or not, they are also somewhat variable based on the tree they are picked from (mainly in terms of texture, less so in terms of flavor)) most people who have had properly ripe fruits find them quite tasty (far from the insipid description they are given on some webpages). They should only be picked when the fruits are redish and soft (at the right stage they also tend to detach from the tree easily). Picking them too early gives bad results, likewise if they are picked too late they can sometimes be fermented...

The skins can be somewhat bitter and the flesh near the skins tends to be grainy and mealy. The flesh of the interior tends to be smooth (when ripe) and tasty. The best way to eat them is to make a tear in the skin and squeeze the pulp out with your thumb and forefinger (most of the mealy flesh and all of the skin remains behind this way).

The biggest problem with C. kousa fruits is that most have a relatively small amount of flesh to eat (some varieties like "Big Apple" have larger fruits though), and this is compounded by the fact that there are usually some hard seeds in the pulp. Still an average fruit has about as much pulp as a cherry. Most people who eat Cornus fruits agree that C. kousa has the best fruits of the genus and they are well worth eating. 192.80.55.74 18:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)