Unknown Follybowlius (pomegranate, Dark Purple skinned fruit)

[alanmercieca]

Unknown Follybowlius (Dark Purple skinned fruit)

This cultivar was named "Unknown Follybowlius" by a owner of the Folly bowl garden amphitheater in Altadena, California, he provided me with the seeds, I received the seeds Monday March 6th 2017.

I was able to save and clean 175 seeds, some seemed bad and rotten and some of the tinniest ones were so dirty I gave up cleaning them. Yet that is more than we need anyway.

It's believed to be a true dwarf pomegranate cultivar, the fruit looks a lot like a cross between the "Eight Ball" pomegranate and the "Purple Sunset" yet I doubt that it's a hybrid of the two.

This cultivar and some of it's seedlings they flower, and they bare fruit at a young age.

The arils are a semi-transparent ruby red in color, less sweet than the usual pomegranates, the flesh and the juice is similar in flavor to non-sour cranberries, that juice is sweeter, is less sour, and is less tart than the juice from store bought 'Wonderful' fruit. It's white seeds are tiny to small in size, and the seed shells are hard, yet fragile. Since this is not a sweet pomegranate I am thinking that it may make great pomegranate molasses, and great jam.

This cultivar appears to be a wild cultivar, like wild cultivars the plant and it's seedlings are dwarfed, although some are more heavily dwarfed than others. The seedlings appear to be cold hardy so far, having survived as cold as 24 degrees Fahrenheit, they all have tiny to small sized seeds, like wild cultivars they do not successfully cross pollinate with common pomegranate cultivars which is why wild pomegranate seedlings do not vary much from one and another when surrounded by common pomegranate plants. Only two of the seedlings have survived, as far as I can tell the seedlings that grew from this cultivar all have varied a lot on how tough they're, they all seem to need way more water to survive than most other pomegranate cultivars, and some are way more sensitive to strong sunlight than others.

The skin of the tiny to small fruit is dark almost pitch black, yet with a strong hint of purple, one person described the skin color as "plum-colored", which is a very fitting description. The tree stays small like a shrub for years. Handy in small spaces and as accents in design.

Flowers of this cultivar and it's seedlings are the average flowers, they start out orangish red, yet they quickly turn the same dark purple/almost black that the fruit peel will become.

Here is a photo of a fruit on the original bush, not fully ripe yet, it's two photos up from the comment area https://www.penick.net/digging/?p=35365

Early 2020, the mother tree was about 17 years old.

[alanmercieca]

On Monday March 6th 2017, I had received seeds from the fruit of "Unknown Follybowlius", as you can read in the above description.

Shortly after that I mailed 'Dig' 40 of the seeds, only one of the seedlings has survived, and shortly after he sent me an air layering of his last remaining seedling, that seedling died of dehydration, Dig lives in a hot, and a very dry place.

Only one of the seeds that I tried to germinate survived, and that one is even less drought friendly than Dig's. Both my seedling and the air layering of Dig's seedling are doing good so far.

The following was created from posts on the old 'Bountiful Figs' forum:

"Got the seeds today and one hour later they are all tucked into their new homes. The garden compost they are in has been giving me volunteer seedlings that look very healthy and vigorous so I am hoping these take to that soil just as well." - Dig

photo taken March 13th, 2017

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One week later no seedlings showing, photo taken March 21st, 2017

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3 weeks & 3 days later, 2 seedlings showing. Photo taken April 14th, 2017

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2 weeks & 5 days later, 2 still alive after the two first dried out. Photo taken May 3rd, 2017

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"It has been a while since I posted and I have plenty of updates.

Here are some photos of those seeds you sent me that were from very dark fruit all grown up!

As I stated before only two seeds made it past emergence, but there was a unexpected gift. I used some of the seedling earth to fill in the transplants and viola two more seeds sprouted. At that point it was at least 70 days past planting. Two more seeds popped and are now small trees, making one pot very full." - Dig

9 weeks later, Photos taken July 5th, 2017

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"I thought I would update y'all on these small trees. Only the single potted tree is flowering. The other three in the one pot still look great, but are growing slower due to competition. Trunk pictured is larger then a pencil." - Dig

16 weeks later, photo taken October 25th 2017

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"Two more of the small black skinned pomegranate seedlings are blooming. The fruit from the first tree that bloomed is a really pretty dark purple/magenta. Much darker then any fruit I have seen here before. Some of the leaves are beginning to turn yellow, as are the large trees around town.

I will take some photos later when the lighting is better." - Dig, this was posted on November 21st, 2017.

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"here is a shot of the fruit. The stem of this tree is larger then a pencil now." - Dig

19 weeks and 6 days later, photo taken November 21st 2017, flower turning in to a fruit

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"Happy little buggers. These trees reach about 2’ tall. There will certainly be clonable material next season. The more mature poms are really yellowing." - Dig

9 days later, photos taken November 30th 2017

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"Picked today and thought i would show. Very dark. Seeds were immature." - Dig

Fruit far from ripe. Photos taken January 5th, 2018

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"There were a few flowers a day ago, but I picked them off. All simple reds. Looks like active growth still atbthe base. They have been brought in on the under 30 nights. Will not go to sleep. Will be 5-6' next year in a pot." - Dig

Photos taken January 6th 2018

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"I dropped one if my seedling trees from last year into the ground today. Teeny weeny little fruit, much like last season too." - Dig

Photo taken May 27th 2018

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"I doubt they will have any issues here in the city of poms. I almost killed the bigger of the two a month ago when the weather turned warm and desiccated the tree in one days time. It did releaf, but it lost about half the growth." - Dig

Photo taken May 28th 2018

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"The trees are doing nicely. I absentmindedly tried to kill them last year because we has a very dry year. They dried out and dropped leaves fully. However they both releafed and the potted tree proceeded to become a stunning tree. The fruit was much larger then last year. I tried a few fruits and it tasted similar to non-sour cranberries. Seed were hard and juice was ruby red. The inground tree is currently in early stage bud. The larger potted tree has yet to bud. The flower is a standard simple red/orange." - Dig

In a pot, photos taken November 14th 2018

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"For comparson, the cat was 12 lbs in this photo." - Dig

In a pot photo was also taken November 14th 2018.

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and taken February 12th 2019

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The remaining fruit from Dig's 'Unknown Follybowlius' seedling, it's the seedling that he 'then called' 'the single pot tree', because 3 of the 4 seedlings were in one pot and the other seedling had it's own pot.

These photos were taken February 18th 2019.

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