Diospyros virginiana, 
THE VIRGINIAN DATE PLUM OR, PERSIMON-TREE. 
Synonymes. 
Diospyros virginiana. 
ILinn^us, Species Plantarum. 
Michaux, North American Sylva. 
Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum 
Plaqueminier de Virginie, France. 
Virginische Dattelpflaume, Germany. 
Diospiro di Virginia, Italy. 
Virginian Date Plum-tree, Persimon-tree, Britain and Anglo-America. 
Engravings. Michaux, North American Sylva, pi. 93; Audubon, Birds of America, i., pi. Ixsjh.- , Louuon, Arooietum 
Britannicum, vi., pi. 200 et 201 ; and the figures below. 
Specific Characters. Leaver ovate-oblong, acuminated, glabrous, shining above, jvnd paler beneath, retic- 
ulately veined. Petioles short and curved, and, as well as the branchlets, downy. Leaf buds glabrous 
Flowers quadrifid, rarely quinqueiid. Flowers pale-yellow. Don, Miller's Diet. 
Description. 
"If Fever's fervid rage 
Glow'd in the boiling veins, with care they sought 
The firm Diospyros." 
Traits of the Aborigines 
pffigpHE Virginian Date Plum, 
la h H IP when grown under fa- 
SI LJ fS vourable conditions, some- 
times attains a height of 
sixty or seventy feet, with a trunk eighteen or 
twenty inches in diameter; but, under ordinary 
circumstances, it does not usually exceed one 
half of these dimensions. The trunk of a full- 
grown tree is covered with a deeply-furrowed 
blackish bark, from which exudes a greenish gum, 
without taste or odour. This tree is readily dis- 
tinguished from the European date plum, by its 
leaves being nearly of the same shade of green 
on both surfaces; while those of the latter are 
of a dark purplish-green above, and much paler, 
and furnished with a somewhat pinkish down beneath. Those of the Virginian 
date plum are from four to six inches in length, oblong, entire, of a fine green 
above, glaucous beneath, and often, in autumn, are variegated with black spots. 
The terminal shoots are observed to be usually accompanied, at the base, by 
small rounded leaves. This species belongs to that class of vegetables, the sexes 
of which are confined to different trees. Both the barren and fertile flowers are 
of a greenish-yellow, but not strikingly conspicuous. They put forth in June 
and July, and are succeeded by a round fruit, about the size of a bullace plum, 
of a reddish complexion, with a fleshy pulp, containing six or eight semi-oval 
stones, slightly swollen at the sides, and of a dark-purple colour. The fruit is 
not palatable till it has been softened by frost, when it becomes sweet, though 
still astringent. In the southern states of the union it adheres to the branches 
long after the leaves have dropped ; and when it falls, it is eagerly devoured by 
wild and domestic animals. 
