EBENACEAE. 303 
Diospyros. Persimmon. 
(Family Ebenaceae). 
Shrubs or mostly moderate- 
sized trees: deciduous. Twigs 
moderate, terete, somewhat zig- 
zag, red-brown, finally with evi- 
dent lenticels: pith moderate, 
rounded, greenish becoming white, 
sometimes becoming spongy or 
even chambered between lace-like 
plates. Buds solitary, sessile, del- 
toid-ovoid, with 2 greatly over- 
lapping scales, the end-bud lack- 
ing. Leaf-scars variable in posi- 
tion, 2-ranked on _ spreading 
branches, elsewhere 5-ranked or 
exceptionally sub-oppositely 4- 
ranked, half-elliptical, somewhat 
raised: bundle-trace 1, C-shaped: 
stipule-scars lacking. 
Winter-character references:— 
Diospyros kaki. Shirasawa, 243, 
pl 3s: D. Lotus. ‘Sehneider;-£. 
117; Shirasawa, 243, pl. 3. D. virginiana. Brendel, pl. 3; 
Hitchcock (1), 5. 
Few trees possess a more characteristic bark than the 
persimmon. The sometimes very regular squares into which 
it checks differentiate the mature tree from any other with 
which it is likely to occur. In contrast with this, it is un- 
usually variable in leaf-position and in the structure of its 
pith, though no other tree possesses a combination of bud- and 
leaf-scar characters likely to be mistaken for those of 
Diospyros. 
Twigs from loosely hairy glabrescent: buds glabrous, blackish. 
D. virginiana. 
