Sorry... it's been a loooooong summer, but here's another mystery, this time from my neighbor (part of the same garden as mine, separated when the lots were split). Again, I will follow up with images soon. It looks to me like a ficus-- with solid, smooth bark-- Only instead of a house-plant, it's growing outside. The tree is only about 15 feet tall, but some of its radial trunks are as large as 4, maybe 6" in diameter and it spreads like an apple or cherry with low branch, about 15 feet. Neighbor thought it was an apple tree, but on first glance at the foliage, I'm convinced it's a fig. The thing is, there are neither figs nor apples, but tiny, red berries. They don't really grow in clusters: more like a short-stemmed cherry, but the size of a blueberry or smaller. The green (immature) berries turn a deep purple black (still immature) before ripening into a soft, bright scarlet berry. When squished, the berry opens on two-to-three seeds and really resembles a teeny-tiny tomato more than anything else. Its skin, texture, "meat" and seeds-- as well as its fragrance!-- remind me of tomatos. I have not tasted one, though I'm tempted The foliage is longer than apple foliage, and grows in weeping clumps-- which is really what reminds me of a ficus. It is a light, dual-sided green/silver (which sometimes apple can be, too except I'm saying this from my childhood memory and could be wrong). I'm guessing the growth is 10-to-20 years old (probably closer to 20) as everything else here is. Obviously, it's not apple, though I can see why he would be mistaken. I have heard that house/decorative ficus bear a small, berry-type fruit. This is the DelMarVa zone of Maryland, where winters aren't as killing, but extremely cold for at least a month, nevertheless. We aren't in the deep south where plantings are protected by mild winters. They also have what looks startlingly like a 20-foot-tall Hibiscus which flowers in the dead of winter. And the last question-- if we can confirm what it is-- is whether the berry is safe to taste. Okay, call me a little hoo-hoo, but... well, it smells so NICE!
