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Common Trees 



PERSIMMON 



Diospyros virginiana, Linnaeus 



THE Persimmon is best known by its fruit, which is the 

 largest berry produced by any American forest tree. 

 There is no better way to get acquainted with this tree than 

 to try to eat its fruit before it is ripe. Its harsh puckcry taste 

 draws the lips and chokes the throat. 



PERSIMMON 

 One-half natural size. 



The fruit is a reddish-yellow pulpy berry, one to one and 

 one-half inches in diameter. The bitterness disappears with 

 age and frost action. The leaves are simple, alternate, oval, 

 shiny, 4 to 6 inches long, sharp-pointed, smooth along mar- 

 gin. The twigs are reddish-brown, with rather large pith. 

 They bear broadly egg-shaped buds, are marked with half- 

 moon shaped leaf-scars with only one bundle-scar. The bark, 

 is deeply furrowed, breaks into dark gray to black squarish 

 blocks separated by furrows that are cinnamon-red along the 

 bottom. 



The yellowish to white flowers appear in May. 



The wood is hard, heavy and strong. The heart-wood is 

 brown to black; the sapwood is wide and white to yellow- 

 ish. It is used for golfstick heads and shuttles. 



The Persimmon is found from Rhode Island to Florida, 

 west to Kansas and Texas. It thrives best on the light sandy 

 soil of the warm South. In Ohio this tree occurs south of 

 the latitude of Columbus. It is frequent in the counties 

 drained by the Ohio river. It rarely exceeds 50 feet in 

 height and 18 inches in diameter. 



