Scientific Name
Ziziphus jujuba ‘Sugar Cane’
The jujube is a small fruit tree native to China that has been gaining interest in the U.S. over the past few decades. It has been a popular fruit in China for thousands of years, with hundreds of cultivars selected for fruit size, flavor, drying quality, medicinal use and reduced thorniness. In the early 20th century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tested jujube varieties in Oklahoma but concluded the fruit wasn’t sweet enough for American tastes at the time. Today, that may be changing — most people we’ve shared the fruit with find it quite enjoyable. Its flavor is often compared to a mild apple, and increased familiarity with the fruit has also come with the growing presence of East Asian cultures in the U.S.
Jujube trees typically grow 15 to 20 feet tall and have small, glossy leaves with three distinct veins radiating from the base. They leaf out late in the spring, which helps them avoid damage from late frosts. Their small yellow flowers appear around the same time, giving off a surprisingly strong fragrance — often compared to grape soda — and attracting a wide range of insect pollinators.
The fruit ranges from about 1 to over 2 inches long, starting green and turning a mottled reddish color as it ripens. In China, much of the harvest is dried, which gives the fruit a very different flavor from when it’s fresh. The two cultivars planted at the Regis Residence Village, ‘Sugar Cane’ and ‘Coco,’ are among the sweetest types. Both are grafted onto standard jujube rootstock, which can occasionally send up vigorous, very thorny shoots of “wild” jujube. These shoots produce smaller, less palatable fruit and need to be removed so they don’t outgrow the cultivated portion of the tree.
Even the cultivated varieties do have some thorns, though they’re far less formidable than those of the wild type. We keep the trees pruned to make sure passersby don’t get snagged as they walk by.