GETTING AC^AINTED WITH THE TREES 



fairy tale about the red -bud, or Judas-tree, 

 might well have based his story on the Ameri- 

 can persimmon, but for the fact that this puck- 

 ery little globe, so brilliant and so deceptive 

 before frost, loses both its beauty and its astrin- 

 gency when slightly frozen. Then its tender 

 flesh is suave and delicious, and old Jove might 

 well choose it for his own. 



But the tree — that is a beauty all summer, 

 with its shining leaves, oblong, pointed and 

 almost of the magnolia shape. It will grace 

 any situation, and is particularly one of the 

 trees worth planting along highways, to relieve 

 the monotony of too many maples, ashes, horse- 

 chestnuts and the like, and to offer to the 

 passer-by a tempting fruit of which he will 

 surely not partake too freely when it is most 

 attractive. I read that toward the Western limit 

 of its range the persimmon, in Louisiana, East- 

 ern Kansas and the Indian Territory, becomes 

 another tree of the first magnitude, towering 

 above a hundred feet. This would be well 

 worth seeing ! 



There is another persimmon in the South, 

 introduced from Japan, the fruits of which are 



232 



