Dwarf hackberry

Photo: Mason Brock (Masebrock) — Public domain · source

Survives zone 5 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The dwarf hackberry: sweet, mealy fruit, but so little flesh around such a large stone that gathering it in quantity is not worth the effort. Grown more for its toughness on dry, gravelly, alkaline ground than for the crop.

Hardiness

Zone 5–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Seed, Fruit

Ripens

October

Mature size

Small tree or large shrub to 4.5 m

Light

Full sun — will not grow in shade

Soil pH

5.5–8.5 (mildly acid to alkaline)

Environment

Woodland

Native range

Eastern North America — southern Ontario and the north-eastern states west to the Great Plains and south to Texas and the south-east, on dry rocky or gravelly soils in foothills, bluffs and open woods, sea level to 500 m.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

6–10 yrs from seed

Growth speed

20–30 cm/year — slow, in keeping with its small final size and dry, gravelly habitat.

Spacing

350 cm (138 in) apart — about 12 m² (132 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, simple, ovate and thin-textured, 3–7 cm long, with an asymmetric base, a tapering tip and few or no marginal teeth; noticeably smaller and thinner than the common hackberry's.

Root system

Lacking a strong taproot on the shallow rocky ground it usually occupies, spreading instead as a wide lateral network near the surface; deeper rooting only where soil depth allows.

Fruit description

Single-seeded drupes about 6–8 mm across, ripening orange-red to dark purple-brown, sweet and mealy but with so little flesh over such a large stone that a worthwhile pick is hard work.

Propagation

Seed, cleaned of pulp and cold stratified moist for 60–90 days at about 4°C before spring sowing — or sown outdoors in autumn to chill naturally over winter.

Pollination

Wind-pollinated and polygamo-monoecious — male, female and perfect flowers on the same plant — so no pollination partner is required.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.