EBENACE^ 



749 



wood and thick soft yellow sapwood. The ebony of commerce is partly produced 

 by different tropical species. The fruit is often edible, and some of the species are 

 important fruit-trees in China and Japan. 



The generic name, from Ai6s and irvpds is in allusion to the life-giving properties 

 of the fruit. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Flowers on branchlets of the year ; anthers opening longitudinally nearly throughout their 

 entire length ; filaments pubescent ; pistillate flywers with 8 rudimentary stamens ; ovary 

 nearly glabrous ; leaves oval ; fruit orange color. 1. D. Virginiana (A, C). 



Flowers on branchlets of the previous year ; anthers opening only near the apex ; filaments 

 glabrous ; pistillate flowers without rudimentary stamens ; ovary pubescent ; leaves cune- 

 ate-oblong or obovate ; fruit black. 2. D. Texana (C). 



1. Diospyros Virginiana, L. Persimmon. 



Leaves oval, shortly acuminate at the apex, and abruptly or gradually narrowed 

 or rounded or often cordate at the base, when they unfold light green or red, 

 pubescent on the lower and puberulous on the upper surface, and ciliate on the 

 margins, with long soft white hairs, and at maturity coriaceous, dark green and 

 lustrous above, pale and often pubescent below, 4'-6' long and 2'-3' wide, with broad 



/i^6oo 



flat midribs, about 6 pairs of conspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins 

 and reticulate veinlets, falling early in the autumn without change of color or some- 

 times turning orange or scarlet; their petioles stout, pubescent, ^'-1' long. Flo"wer8 

 appearing when the leaves are more than half grown, on branchlets of the year; the 

 staminate in 2-3-flowered pubescent pedunculate cymes, the pedicels in the axils of 

 minute lanceolate acute caducous bracts and furnished near the middle with 2 minute 

 caducous bractlets; the pistillate solitary, on short recurved peduncles covered with 

 2 conspicuous acute bractlets ciliate on the margin^ and of ten \' in length; corolla 

 of the staminate flower tubular, ^ long, slightly contracted below the short acute 

 reflexed lobes forming before expansion a pointed 4-angled bud rather longer than 

 the broadly ovate acute follaceous ciliate calyx-lobes inflexed on the margins; 

 stamens with short slightly hairy filaments, and linear lanceolate anthers opening 

 throughout their length; pistillate flower |' long, with a greenish yellow or creamy 



