CHAPTER XXVI 



PERSIMMONS, MULBERRIES, PAPAWS, ELDERS, HIGH-BUSH, 



CRANBERRIES, BUFFALO-BERRIES, GOUMIS, 



AND BARBERRIES 



Besides the commonly cultivated plants, 

 there are a great number of tree- and bush- 

 fruits in North America which yield edible 

 products. The aborigines in what is now the 

 United States obtained food from about 200 

 species of tree, bush, vine and small-fruits. 

 Not more than 45 of these are under cultiva- 

 tion, and unquestionably more of them will 

 be domesticated to the enrichment of Ameri- 

 can pomology. Indeed, something is being 

 done now towards the domestication of the 

 most promising. Possibly the persimmon is 

 the most important of these: a number of 

 varieties of this fruit already have been intro- 

 duced to cultivation. 



THE PERSIMMON 



The persimmons are members of the genus 

 Diospyros, in which there are more than 150 

 species, mostly inhabitants of the tropics in 

 both hemispheres, but a few grow in temperate 

 climates and fall under the head of hardy 

 fruits. Diospyros belongs to the ebony family 

 (Ebenacese), of which the ebony of commerce 

 is the type. Two species grow in temperate 

 eastern North America, one of which is al- 

 ready of importance in pomology and the 

 other gives some promise of value. Besides 

 these native persimmons, a score or more va- 

 rieties of Asiatic persimmons have been intro- 

 duced under the names Japanese persimmon or 

 kaki. These foreign fruits are tender to cold, 

 being but little hardier than the orange, and 

 thrive only in California and the cotton-belt 

 of the South, therefore can hardly be consid- 

 ered as proper subjects for discussion in a 

 book on hardy fruits. 



Of the two native persimmons, the black 

 persimmon, Diospyros texana, abounding in 

 western and southern Texas, while of some 

 promise, is not yet planted for its fruit, and 

 may therefore be dismissed without further 

 discussion. The American persimmon, Diospy- 

 ros virginiana, the wild persimmon of south- 

 eastern America, since the discovery of the 

 country has attracted the attention of ex- 

 plorers and colonists ; its fruit has been utilized 

 from the first settlement of the country; and 

 it is the plant of present importance, with 

 prospective value equal to that of almost any 

 other native fruit. 



Diospyros virginiana, Linn. American Persimmon. 

 Common Persimmon. Simmon-tree. Date Plum. 

 Possum-wood. Tree 50-100 feet, round-topped head. 



branches spreading or drooping, irregular ; bark thick, 

 hardy, brown or black, fissured into small blocks. 

 Leaves ovate or oval, pointed, 3-6 inches long, hairy 

 when young, smooth with age or pubescent beneath. 

 Flowers yellowish-green, dioecious, the sterile on one 

 tree, the fertile ones on another, the former in small 

 clusters, the latter solitary ; corolla usually 4-lobed ; 

 sterile flowers % inch long with 16 stamens ; fertile 

 with a pointed hairy ovary surmounted with 4 slender 

 styles, y 2 inch long. Fruit a drupe, reddish-yellow or 

 sometimes purplish, globose or obovate, set in a leathery 

 4-lobed calyx, 1* inches in diameter, pulpy, astringent 

 when green, sweet when ripe or after frost ; variable in 

 size, color and flavor. 



The persimmon is usually found in woods, 

 preferring dry lands, from Rhode Island, 

 southern New York, Iowa, and Kansas south- 

 ward to Florida and Texas. As wild plants, 

 the trees are little attacked by insects and 

 fungi; thrive under exceedingly variable con- 

 ditions; vary greatly in tree and fruit; are 

 vigorous, self-assertive plants and promise 

 rapid and easy domestication and improvement. 



The early explorers found the persimmon 

 used by the Indians, and, while at first they 

 found that "Persimmons were harsh and 

 choakie and furred in a man's mouth like 

 allam," they pronounced the fruit pleasant and 

 luscious when they discovered that it was> 

 edible only when dead ripe or touched by 

 frost. DeSoto seems to have been the first 

 European to discover the persimmon, having 

 found the fruit helpful in eking out the scanty 

 fare for his men in the autumn of 1539. The 

 description of it published in the narrative of 

 DeSoto's expedition in 1557 was the first, but 

 in the next century persimmons were admir- 

 ably described by several explorers. 



The persimmon is usually thought of as a 

 fruit of the cotton-belt, because it grows most 

 abundantly in the far South, and bears fruits 

 much less austere southward. Nevertheless, 

 wild persimmons grow as far north as the Great 

 Lakes, and planted trees grew for many years 

 on the grounds of the New York Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, central New York, suc- 

 cumbing to the cold winter of 1916-17. Most 

 of the varieties now under cultivation have 

 come from southern and southwestern wild 

 plants. Selections made from the most north- 

 ern trees would probably result in hardier 

 varieties, although the quality might fall short. 

 The chief difficulties in growing persimmons 

 at present are found in propagation and trans- 

 planting. Named varieties must be budded or 

 grafted difficult operations, and the tree, 

 having a long tap-root, is not easily trans- 

 planted. 



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