Addisonia ^ 



(Plate 85) 



DIOSPYROS VIRGINIANA 

 Persimmon 



Native of the eastern United States 

 Family EbEnaceaE Kbony Family 



Diospyros virginiana L. Sp. PI. 1057, 1753. 

 Diospyros concolor Moench, Meth. 470. 1791. 

 Diospyros pubescens Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 265. 1814. 



A small or large tree, or sometimes a shrub, with spreading gray 

 branches, the twigs reddish-brown and glabrous or sometimes ob- 

 scurely pubescent. The bark of the trunk is deep brown or nearly 

 black and ultimately broken into small blocks. The sap-wood is 

 close-grained, hard, heavy; the heart- wood develops only when the 

 tree is of great age and is dark brown or nearly black. The leaves 

 are alternate, deciduous, short-petioled, with ehiptic or oval, varying 

 to ovate, thin, leathery blades, two to six inches long, acute or 

 short-acuminate, entire, shining and deep-green above, paler and 

 dull beneath, glabrous or sometimes finely pubescent, especially 

 beneath, acute, obtuse, or cordate at the base. The flowers are 

 usually staminate or pistillate, solitary or few together in cymes, 

 short-stalked. The calyx is four-lobed, that of the staminate flower 

 with lanceolate to deltoid lobes; that of the pistillate flower is much 

 larger, persistent, accrescent, with orbicular-deltoid lobes. The 

 corolla is white or pinkish, or sometimes greenish yehow, urceolate, 

 about twice as long as the calyx, that of the pistillate flower larger than 

 that of the staminate, with four reniform recurved lobes. The sta- 

 mens, usually sixteen, are included, and commonly borne in two rows 

 on the lower part of the corolla-tube; their filaments are very short 

 and each one supports an erect narrow elongate anther, the anthers 

 of the inner row usually bearded at the base, those of the outer row 

 shghtly larger than those of the inner; the stamens in the pistillate 

 flower are represented by staminodia with short stalks and lanceolate- 

 sagittate bodies. The ovary is sessile, depressed-globose, glabrous 

 and surmounted by four slender styles, each of which is terminated 

 by an inconspicuous stigma. The berries are usually sohtary, 

 globose, varying to depressed or elongate, thin-skinned, pale yehow to 

 orange or often reddish brown southward, seated on the accrescent 

 calyx, the diameter of which is usually less than the diameter of the 

 berry; the flesh, hard and exceedingly astringent when green, is soft 

 and yehowish and very sweet when mature. The seeds are flat, 

 elliptic or slightly narrowed upward, arranged in a whorl around the 

 axis of the berry, brown, usually shining, but slightly roughened. 



The geographic range of the persimmon in North America extends 

 naturally from Connecticut to Iowa and southward to the Gulf of 



