356 MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



India, but A. C. Hartless reports recently that certain vari- 

 eties have proved successful at Dehra Dun and elsewhere, 

 and grafted plants are being disseminated from the Botanical 

 Garden at Saharanpur. In Queensland, where it is said to 

 have been introduced less than forty years ago, it is meeting 

 with favor but is not yet extensively grown. In the United 

 States it has been planted chiefly in Florida, Louisiana, and 

 California. 



The name kaki, which is applied to this fruit in Japan, 

 has become current in the United States and in southern 

 France. Japanese persimmon and occasionally date-plum 

 and Chinese date-plum are terms used in the United States, 

 and plaquemine in France. The Chinese name is shi tze. 

 Botanically the cultivated kakis are commonly grouped to- 

 gether under the name Diospyros Kaki, L. f., of which D. 

 chinensis, Blume, D. Schitse, Bunge, and D. Roxburghii, 

 Carr., are considered synonyms. French botanists have made 

 botanical varieties or even species out of some of the forms 

 which are elsewhere held to be mere horticultural varieties, 

 e.g., costata. 



In the United States the kaki is usually sold as a fresh fruit, 

 to be eaten out of hand. In Japan certain varieties are used 

 extensively for drying, the product somewhat resembling dried 

 figs in character and being delicious. "The method of drying, " 

 writes George C. Roeding, "is simple. The skin is pared off 

 and the fruits are suspended by the stems, tying them with 

 string to a rope or stick and exposing them to the sun. They 

 gradually lose their original form, turn quite dark and are 

 covered with sugar crystals. . . . Fruit should be picked 

 for drying when yellow and firm." 



Methods of processing the mature fruit, so as to remove its 

 astringency, are discussed on a later page. The chemical com- 

 position of five varieties is shown in the following table, from 

 analyses made by H. C. Gore : 



