2 SIL VA OF NORTH AMERICA. EBENACES. 
times eight-celled, each cell more or less completely divided by the development of a false longitudinal 
partition from its exterior face; styles one to four, distinct or partially united, or obsolete; stigmas 
two-parted or lobed; ovules solitary in the divisions of the cells, attached to their interior angle, pendu- 
lous, anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit globose, oblong, or conical, glabrous, 
glabrate, pubescent, or tomentose, often pulpy, one to ten-seeded, the enlarged persistent calyx often 
Seeds 
Embryo 
dilated at the base, its lobes spreading or reflexed, sometimes plicate, coriaceous, or foliaceous. 
pendulous, oblong, compressed ; testa thin, or thick and bony, dark, more or less lustrous. 
axile in copious ruminate or uniform albumen, straight or somewhat curved; cotyledons foliaceous, 
ovate, or lanceolate; radicle superior, cylindrical, turned towards the small hilum.’ 
About one hundred and sixty species of Diospyros are now known ;* they abound in tropical Asia 
and Malaya, where the largest number are collected, in tropical Africa and Natal, Madagascar, Brazil, 
the region bordering the Caribbean Sea, and Mexico. 
and Seychelles Islands, in tropical Australia, China, the West Indies, and eastern North America, where 
They occur in New Caledonia, on the Mascarene 
two species are found. The genus is not represented in western North America, the Andean region, 
and extratropical South America, southern Australia, New Zealand, or in Europe and northern Africa, 
where, however, Diospyros Lotus,> a native probably of the Orient, northern India, and China, has 
become naturalized in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. In Japan, where two or three 
species have been cultivated from very early times and are now occasionally naturalized, the genus was 
probably introduced by man from the neighboring continent. Fossil remains found in the miocene 
rocks of Greenland,’ central and southern Europe,° and Alaska,® and in the cretaceous formation of 
Nebraska,’ indicate that Diospyros or some closely related genus once inhabited regions from which the 
family to which it belongs has now disappeared. 
Diospyros produces hard close-grained valuable wood with small pores, often in radial lines, and 
numerous thin equidistant uniform medullary rays, very thick pale usually soft sapwood, and dark often 
black heartwood, which is formed only in old individuals. The ebony of commerce is partly derived 
from different tropical species of Diospyros,* especially from Diospyros Hbenum® and Diospyros 
1 By Hiern (Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. xii. pt. i. 146) the species 
of Diospyros are grouped in fifteen sections, principally distin- 
guished by the ruminate or uniform albumen of the seeds, by the 
form of the calyx, the insertion of the stamens, and the shape of 
the fruit. 
2 Aublet, Pl. Guian. i. 576 (Paralea). — Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. 
Ind. 668.— A. de Candolle, Prodr. viii. 222.— Miquel, Fl. Ind. 
Bat. ii. 1044; Martius Fl. Brasil. vii. 3.— Thwaites, Enum. Pl. 
Zeylan. 178, 423.—Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 404; Cat. Pl. 
Cub. 168. — Bentham, Fl. Austral. iv. 286. — Hiern, l. c. 144; 
Oliver Fl. Trop. Afr. iii. 517. — Baker, Fl. Maur. and Seych. 196. — 
Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 300. — C. B. Clarke, Hooker f. Fl. 
Brit. Ind. iii. 553. — Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxvi. 69. 
8 Linneus, Spec. 1057 (1753). — Pallas, Fl. Ross. i. pt. ii. 20, t. 
58, 59.— Nouveau Duhamel, vi. 83, t. 26. — A. de Candolle, 7. c. 
228. — Hiern, l. c. 223. — Hance, Jour. Linn. Soc. xiii. 83.— C. B. 
Clarke, J. c. 555. — Franchet & Savatier, Enum. Pl. Jap. i. 303. — 
Naudin, Nouv. Arch. Mus. sér. 2, iii. 220.— Caruel, Parlatore Fl. 
Ital. viii. 686. — Forbes & Hemsley, J. c. 70. 
Dactylus Trapezuntinus, Forskal, Fl. 4igypt-Arab. p. xxxvi. 
(1775). 
Diospyros Kaki, var. B, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 158 (1784). 
Diospyros microcarpa, Siebold, Ann. Soc. Hort. Pays Bas, 1844, 
28. 
Diospyros Japonica, Siebold & Zuccarini, Abhand. Akad. 
Minch. iv. pt. iii. 136 (1846). 
Diospyros Pseudo-Lotus, Naudin, 1. c. (1880). 
Diospyros Lotus is believed to be a native of northern Persia and 
Anatolia, whence it was carried by the ancients into the countries 
bordering the Mediterranean ; it is probably indigenous in some 
parts of northern India, where it has also long been cultivated, in 
Afghanistan, and northern China, where this tree is said to be com- 
mon in the mountain forests near Peking. It is often cultivated 
in Japan, where it appears to have been introduced from China 
in early times. The small fruit, when fully ripe, has a sweetish 
flavor, and is consumed in large quantities fresh and dried by some 
native tribes of India (Brandis, Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 298). 
* Heer, Fl. Foss. Arct. 118, t. 7, £. 7, b, c, £..8; t. 47, £. 8. 
5 Saporta, Origine Paléontologique des Arbres, 241. — Zittel, 
Handb. Paleontolog. ii. 745, £. 384-386. 
8 Schimper, Paléontolog. Vég. ii. 949. 
7 Heer, Phyll. Crét. Nebr. 19, t. 1, £. 6, 7. 
8 Charropin, Etude sur le Plaqueminier, 13. — Spons, Encyclope- 
dia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and Raw Commercial Prod- 
ucts, ii. 2015. 
® Koenig, Phys. Salsk. Handl. i. 176 (1776). — Linneus f. Suppl. 
440.— A. de Candolle, J. c. 234. —Thwaites, J. c. 180. — Bed- 
dome, Fi. Sylv. S. Ind. i. t. 65. — Hiern, J. c. 208 (in part). — C. B. 
Clarke, /. c. 558. 
Diospyros glaberrima, Rottboell, Act. Hafn. ii. 540, t. 5 (1783). 
Diospyros melanoxylon, Willdenow, Spec. iv. 1109 (not Rox- 
burgh) (1805). 
Diospyros Ebenaster, Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ed. 2, ii. 529 (not Ret- 
zius) (1832). — Spach, Hist. Vég. ix. 407, t. 135. 
