Tree in neighbourhood

While out walking today, I saw this tree on a sidestreet.
It has some interesting fruit. Edible?
Can someone ID it?
Thanks

 

English walnut.

 

You can tear off their fuzzy coats and let the nut dry. PLEASE use gloves! The juice/sap/? in the fuzzy coats will turn your hands black. I had to learn the hard way. ;(( barb

 

Persian Walnut Juglans regia. Yes, edible; the nuts will be ripe in mid to late September.

 

Thanks, everyone.

Now all I need is a 40' ladder :)

 

Widely used and accepted (by the unbiased) common names include English Walnut, Persian Walnut, Carpathian Walnut, and sometimes California Walnut...no need for a ladder: the fruits will fall off the tree and can be picked off the ground....though squirrels, raccoons and rats will beat you to most of it.

 

If by that you mean I am biased, then yes, I am proud to be biased in favour of science and accuracy.

You could equally have said "by the uncritical, the unscientific, the uneducated"; those would all have been equally true.

 

Wasn't aware that "Persia" was a scientific term. Thought it was in fact an imperial Latin perversion/imposition of/upon the old Persian term "Parsa", making it historically and factually inaccurate. If the very edges of the world followed the coasts of Britain alone, and history, language, science and the entire realm of fact emerged whole and complete one fine 19th century day in the Cotswolds, you'd have a point; indeed, you'd be amongst the scientific, educated elite.

Unfortunately, it's properly critical and scholarly to point out that the world's bigger than England, names are geographically and historically contingent, and at that, a whole bunch of people in your geo-historic constituency disagree with you.

"Parsan walnut" then?

Nope. By universal agreement, Juglans regia, followed by 'All of the above'. In the realm of common names, the majority rules. Horribly democratic, eh? Makes holding tight to subjective rules in a realm as slippery as the vernacular in contrast oddly totalitarian.

Squabbling like rats, ravens and raccoons over nut names. Time to get back to the real ones.

 

The common name Persian Walnut simply indicates the center (Persia, now Iran) of the region Juglans regia originates from. The sometimes used common name English Walnut is inaccurate and confusing.

 

Yes, this is commonly understood. Yet even in this sense-point of origin-incorrect. The tree is in fact ‘native’ from what Westerners called Persia (again, not a term the people themselves use, or used; if we are to use only names which are accurate to their origin, the term itself is every bit as wrong as the numerous common names under discussion) through to China, and points between. Once the "Persian Empire", but prior to and following that, something(s) different. The tree itself, and its cultivation, certainly predates the region being called "persia": to do so in an absolute, bedrock way is not a point of science, but one of culture and opinion; the very stuff of the common names you deride. It is only exclusively “Persian” to a (very small) group of people culturally and geographically distant from what we're lately calling Iran. Certainly, the people themselves living in its asserted (though incorrect) absolute point of origin have different names for it. And so too do myriad farmers, nut experts, gardeners, arborists, and yes...scientists. Your favoured term "Persian" is simply one of many common/contingent names for this tree, in many ways less accurate (as above) than others. Certainly no more or less valid. Latin name is the universal, rest are matters of regional/common consensus. It might be confusing in its diversity, but as far as I can tell, we're really only discussing 4 or 5 common names. It's not that bad.

All of this as though thousands of years of anthropogenic dispersal, naturalizing, hybridizing and improving-and resulting diversity of genetics, varieties and common names-are irrelevant, and 'incorrect' measured against what is itself a contingent, and in many ways imaginary standard defended only by a very few.

Doubt I can say much more on the topic without being repetitious and hijacking the thread with pedantry. Bottom line: common names cannot be held to a precise, scientific standard. Or more properly, when they are, one's favoured names turn out to be no less inaccurate and confusing than the next. We debate, but we all know what tree we're discussing: surely this is the point.

On the original topic, do agree with Barbara's caution that English-or Persian- walnuts can leave a dark stain that is hard to remove.

 

I'm closing this thread. If anyone wants to say something helpful to ponderoni, let me know and I'll open it back up.