SprigOfTheLivingDead
Garden Addicted
The Kentucky Coffee Tree, a new favorite of mine, has germinated in my grow tent.
Germinated: Nov 30th.
Germination method: hacksaw through seed coat at the basal end of the seed in three places
Into dirt: December 1st. 1/2" down.
Sprouted: overnight on December 13th (13 days to break soil)
As its name suggests the Kentucky Coffee Tree was first encountered in Kentucky, but it’s actually found, though quite sparingly, all the way from Ontario down to Louisiana. It can be used as a replacement for coffee beans, but the pods, seeds and pulp are all poisonous, so you need to boil it a long time to negate that issue. Besides that poisonous bit as trees go it’s pretty cool, so let’s walk through the reasons.
The leaves:
At around 3 feet long they’re one of the largest in North America. Each leaf is divided compoundly twice, creating around 40 small leaflets. It’s sometimes confused for being dead once it drops its leaves each year, thus earning its name “naked branch”. The pods:
Resembling a gigantic kidney bean the pods of the Kentucky Coffee Tree can grow to almost a foot in length and a few inches wide. They have an extremely hard exterior, so much so that most animals cannot even penetrate them to get at the seeds.
The seeds:
If an animal could break through that exterior shell they’d then have the problem of the seadcoat, which is just as tough as the pod was. In fact, the coat is so tough that to germinate the seeds of this tree you need to use a file, hacksaw or acid to get it to a point where water can be taken in.
Since all things in nature exist for a reason, how then has this tree persisted through the ages you ask? Well, it’s believed that the fruit of this tree was a snack for mastodons. Its tough teeth and jaws were able to break open the pod and somewhat abraise the seedcoat, its stomach acid further prepping it for a proper “placement” at some later time. Since the mastodons are no longer kickin’ it with us the tree makes use of wetlands, to rot away the seed pod and seedcoat, and its ability to disperse clonally via root shoots.
Germinated: Nov 30th.
Germination method: hacksaw through seed coat at the basal end of the seed in three places
Into dirt: December 1st. 1/2" down.
Sprouted: overnight on December 13th (13 days to break soil)
As its name suggests the Kentucky Coffee Tree was first encountered in Kentucky, but it’s actually found, though quite sparingly, all the way from Ontario down to Louisiana. It can be used as a replacement for coffee beans, but the pods, seeds and pulp are all poisonous, so you need to boil it a long time to negate that issue. Besides that poisonous bit as trees go it’s pretty cool, so let’s walk through the reasons.
The leaves:
At around 3 feet long they’re one of the largest in North America. Each leaf is divided compoundly twice, creating around 40 small leaflets. It’s sometimes confused for being dead once it drops its leaves each year, thus earning its name “naked branch”. The pods:
Resembling a gigantic kidney bean the pods of the Kentucky Coffee Tree can grow to almost a foot in length and a few inches wide. They have an extremely hard exterior, so much so that most animals cannot even penetrate them to get at the seeds.
The seeds:
If an animal could break through that exterior shell they’d then have the problem of the seadcoat, which is just as tough as the pod was. In fact, the coat is so tough that to germinate the seeds of this tree you need to use a file, hacksaw or acid to get it to a point where water can be taken in.
Since all things in nature exist for a reason, how then has this tree persisted through the ages you ask? Well, it’s believed that the fruit of this tree was a snack for mastodons. Its tough teeth and jaws were able to break open the pod and somewhat abraise the seedcoat, its stomach acid further prepping it for a proper “placement” at some later time. Since the mastodons are no longer kickin’ it with us the tree makes use of wetlands, to rot away the seed pod and seedcoat, and its ability to disperse clonally via root shoots.
Don't you rather wonder how the first person to make "coffee" from the seeds learned about boiling them first? 
experimented with these beans?
Shame on me!
