750 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



white corolla nearly ^' broad; stamens 8, inserted in one row below the middle of 

 the corolla, with short filaments and sagittate abortive or sometimes fertile anthers; 

 ovary conical, pilose toward the apex, ultimately 8-celled, and gradually narrowed 

 into the 4 slender styles hairy at the base. Fruit on a short thick woody stem, 

 ripening at midsummer at the south and late in the autumn at the north, persistent 

 on the branches during the winter, usually depressed-globose or slightly obovate- 

 obloiig, I'-l^' in diameter, differing greatly in size, shape, and quality, pale orange 

 color, often with a bright red cheek, and covered with a glavicous bloom, turning 

 yellowish brown when partly decayed by freezing, surrounded at the base by the 

 spreading calyx I'-l^' in diameter, with broadly ovate pointed lobes recurved on the 

 margins^ flesh austere while green, yellowish brown, sweet and luscious when fully 

 ripe but not edible, except in the extreme south, without the action of frost: seeds 

 oblong, much flattened, ^' long, ^' wide, with a thick hard lustrous brown pitted 

 coat, a conspicuous truncate hilum, and a slender raphe. 



A tree, usually 30-50 high, with a short trunk rarely more than 12' in diameter, 

 spreading often pendulous branches forming a broad or narrow round-topped head, 

 and slender slightly zigzag branchlets, with a thick pith or pith-cavity, light red- 

 brown and more or less pale-pubescent when they first appear, becoming during their 

 first winter pubescent or glabrous, light brown or ashy gray, and marked by occa- 

 sional small orange-colored lenticels and by elevated semicircular leaf -scars, with deep 

 horizontal lunate depressions containing the ends of the crowded fibro-vascular bun- 

 dles, later turning reddish brown, with bark often somewhat broken by longitudinal 

 fissures; or in the primeval forest, under the most favorable conditions, sometimes 

 100-115 high, with a long slender trunk free of branches for 70-80 and rarely 

 exceeding 2 in diameter. Winter-buds axillary, broadly ovate, acute, ^' long, with 

 thick imbricated dark red-brown or purple lustrous scales often persistent at the 

 base of the young branchlets during the season. Bark of the trunk |'-1' thick, dark 

 brown tinged with red, or dark gray, and deeply divided into thick square plates 

 broken into thin persistent scales. Wood heavy, strong, with dark brown or some- 

 times nearly black heartwood often undeveloped until the tree is over 100 years old ; 

 used in turnery, for shoe-lasts, plane-stocks, and preferred for shuttles to other 

 American woods. The fruit contains tannin, to which it owes its astringent qualities, 

 and is eaten in great quantities in the southern states. The inner bark is astringent 

 and bitter. 



Distribution. Light sandy well-drained soil, or in the Mississippi basin some- 

 times on the deep rich bottom-lands of river valleys; Lighthouse Point, New Haven, 

 Connecticut, southward to the banks of the Caloosa River and the shores of Bay 

 Biscayne, Florida, southern Alabama and Mississippi, and from southern Ohio to 

 southeastern Iowa, southern Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, eastern Kansas, the 

 Indian Territory, and the valley of the Colorado River, Texas; very common in the 

 south Atlantic and Gulf states, often covering with shrubby growth by means of its 

 stoloniferous roots abandoned fields, and springing up by the sides of roads and 

 fences. 



Occasionally cultivated in the eastern United States, and rarely in Europe. 



2. Diospyros Texana, Scheele. Black Persimmon. Chapote. 



Leaves cuneate-oblong to obovate, rounded and often retuse at the apex and 

 wedge-shaped at the base, when they unfold covered below with thick pale tomen- 

 tum and above with scattered long white hairs, and at maturity thick and coriaceous. 



