996 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



DIOSPYROS VIRGIN I AN A, American Persimmon 



Diospyros virginiana, Linnaeus, Sp. PI. 1057 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 1195 (1838) 

 Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vi. 7, tt. 252, 253 (1894), and Trees N. Atner. 749 (1905). 



Diospyros guajacana, Romans, Nat. Hist. Florida, 20 (1775). 



Diospyros concolor, Moench, Met A. 471 (1794). 



Diospyros pubescens, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. i. 265 (1814); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 1196 

 (1838). 



Diospyros caroliniana, Rafinesque, Fl. Ludovic. 139 (1817). 



Diospyros Persimmon, Wikstrom, Jahr. Schwed. 1830, p. 92 (1834). 



A deciduous tree, attaining occasionally in America 115 feet in height and 6 

 feet in girth, but usually smaller. Bark 1 deeply divided into square corky plates. 

 Young shoots with a minute dense erect pubescence, persistent usually in the second 

 year. Leaves (Plate 199, Fig. 3) oblong or elliptical ; rounded and unequal or 

 broadly cuneate at the base ; shortly acuminate at the apex ; margin entire and 

 ciliate ; upper surface dull, light green, and glabrous except for some pubescence on 

 the midrib at the base ; lower surface pale, glabrous ; veins pinnate, arcuate, and 

 looping near the margin ; petiole pubescent, to 1 inch long. 



Flowers appearing, when the leaves are more than half-grown, on the current 

 year's shoot, dioecious. Staminate flowers in two- to three-flowered pubescent 

 pedunculate cymes ; calyx with four broadly ovate acute ciliate lobes ; corolla 

 tubular, slightly contracted below the very short acute reflexed lobes ; stamens 

 sixteen, in two series, with pubescent filaments. Pistillate flowers, solitary, on short 

 recurved peduncles ; stamens eight, usually with aborted anthers ; ovary pilose 

 towards the apex, eight-celled ; styles four, two-lobed at the apex, pubescent at the 

 base. 



Fruit solitary, on short woody peduncles, persistent on the branches during 

 winter; depressed, globose; surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx, which has 

 four broadly ovate pointed recurved lobes. The fruit is variable in size, from that of 

 a small cherry to a large plum ; and its flavour is very different in different localities 

 and even on trees growing close together sometimes sweet without the action of 

 frost, or ripening after frost, or at other times acid and never edible. Seeds oblong, 

 flattened, inch long. Seedless forms occur, and experiments are being made in 

 America with these and other good varieties. 



The leaves on trees, growing in the Southern States, are strongly pubescent 

 beneath ; and this variety, which we have not seen in cultivation in England, is 

 scarcely to be distinguished by the foliage alone from D. Lotus, which has pubescent 

 leaves, and differs in this respect from the ordinary form of D. virginiana, with 



1 The bark is well figured in Gard. Chron. iv. 504, % 7 (1888). 



