DIOSPYROS 



Diospyros, Linnaeus, Gen. PL 143 (1737); Hiern in Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. xii. i, 144 (1873); 



Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PI. ii. 665 (1876)5 Giirke in Engler u. Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. 1, 



161 (1890). 

 Cargillia, R. Brown, Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 526 (1810). 

 Leucoxylum, Blume, Bijdr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 1169 (1825). 

 Noltia, Schumacher, Dansk. Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. iii. 189 (1828). 

 Rospidios, A. de Candolle, Prodr. viii. 220 (1844). 



Trees or shrubs, belonging to the order Ebenaceae. Leaves alternate or rarely 

 sub-opposite, deciduous or persistent, simple, entire, without stipules. 



Flowers dioecious or rarely polygamous, monoecious or perfect, 1 in cymes or solitary 

 from the axils of the leaves of the current year, or in a few species arising from the 

 old wood. Calyx, three- to seven-, usually four-lobed, pubescent, and accrescent 

 under the fruit. Corolla urn-shaped, campanulate, tubular, or salver-shaped, three- to 

 seven-, usually four- to five-lobed, pubescent. Male flowers small, usually in cymes ; 

 stamens four to sixteen, inserted on the base of the corolla or hypogynous ; filaments 

 slender and often united by pairs, forming an outer and inner series ; anthers opening 

 longitudinally or by apical pores ; ovary aborted or wanting. Female flowers often 

 solitary ; staminodes four to eight, sometimes wanting, occasionally with fertile 

 anthers ; ovary with four to sixteen cells, which are double the number of the styles 

 and one-ovuled, or rarely of the same number as the styles and two-ovuled. Fruit a 

 berry, with the enlarged and persistent calyx at its base, containing one to ten or 

 more oblong seeds, which have a copious albumen. 



The alternate, simple, stalked, entire leaves, without stipules, and the shoots 

 without true terminal buds and with two persistent bud-scales at their base, are 

 distinguishing marks of the genus. 



About 180 species of Diospyros are known, mostly confined to the subtropical 

 and tropical regions of both hemispheres. The wood is usually hard and close- 

 grained, the heartwood black, the sapwood soft, thick and yellow. 



Only three species are in cultivation in this country ; and of these Diospyros 

 Kaki, Linnaeus f., the Chinese Persimmon, a shrub or small tree, usually only met 

 with in England in greenhouses or trained against a wall, does not come within the 

 scope of our work. It ripens its fruit in warm summers in England. (A. H.) 



1 In many species the sexes are unstable ; cf. Wright, Ann. R. Bot. Card. Fcradeniya, ii. pt. i. I, 133 (1904). 



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