244 STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



D. texana Scheele. black persimmon. 



Mexico. This is the black persimmon of the Americans and the sapote-pieto of 

 the Mexicans of western Texas. The black, cherry-like fruit is melting and very 

 sweet.' 



D. tomentosa Roxb. ebony. 



East Indies. The sweetish, clammy and subastringent fruit of this plant is eaten. 



D. toposia Buch.-Ham. 



East Indies. The fruit of this species is sweetish, clammy, and subastringent but 

 edible.* 



D. virginiana Linn, persimmon. 



North America, fovmd wild from the 42nd parallel to Texas, often attaining the size 

 of a large tree. This plant is the persimmon, piakmine, or pessimmon of America, called 

 by the Louisiana natives ougoufle. Loaves made of the substance of prunes " like imto 

 brickes, also plummes of the making and bigness of nuts and have three or foiu" stones 

 in them " were seen by DeSoto on the Mississippi. It is called mespilorum by LeMoyne 

 in Florida; " mespila unfit to eat until soft and tender " by Hariot on the Roanoke; pes- 

 simmens by Strachey on the James River; and medlars on the Hudson by the remonstrants 

 against the policy of Stuyvesant.' The fruit is pltmi-like, about an inch in diameter, 

 exceedingly astringent when green, yellow when ripe, and sweet and edible after exposure 

 to frost. Porcher ^ says the fruit, when matured, is very sweet and pleasant to the taste 

 and yields on distillation, after fermentation, a quantity of spirits. A beer is made of it. 

 Mixed with flour, a pleasant bread may be prepared. Occasional varieties are found 

 with fruit double the size of the ordinary kind. The best persimmons ripen soft and 

 sweet, having a clear, thin, transparent skin without any roughness. Flint, ^ in his 

 Western States, says when the small, blue persimmon is thoroughly ripened, it is even 

 sweeter than the fig and is a delicious fruit. It is sometimes cultivated in America and 

 is also to be found in some gardens in Europe. 



Dipladenia tenuifolia A. DC. Apocynaceae. 



Brazil. This plant is called by the inhabitants of Sertao, Brazil, cauhy, and the 

 tuberous root, which is the size and color of a large, black turnip-radish, is eaten by 

 them when cooked and is said to be very palatable; in the raw state it tastes not xmlike a 

 turnip. 



Diplazium esculentum. Polypodioceae. 



This fern, according to Royle,'' is employed as food in the Himalayas. 



1 Lindenheimer U. S. D. A. Rpt. 166. 1875. 

 'Royle, J. P. Illustr. Bot. Himal. 1:262. 1839. 

 Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 770. 1879. 



* Porcher, F. P. Res. So. Fields, Forests 424. 1869. 

 'Flint, T. West. States ^.^i. 1828. 



Gardner, G. Trav. Braz. 179. 1846^ 



' Royle, J. F. Illustr. Bot. Himal. 1:429. 1839. 



