GETTING ACQUAINTED 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 



