EBONY FAMILY 



cymes ; the pedicels downy and bearing two minute bracts. Pistil- 

 late flowers solitary, usually on separate trees, their pedicels short, 

 recurved, and bearing two bractlets. 



Calyx. — Usually four-lobed, accrescent under the fruit. 



Corolla. — Greenish yellow or creamy white, tubular, four-lobed ; 

 lobes imbricate in bud. 



Stamens. — Sixteen, inserted on the corolla, in staminate flowers in 

 two rows. Filaments short, slender, slightly hairy ; anthers oblong, 

 introrse, two-celled, cells opening longitudinally. In pistillate flowers 

 the stamens are eight with aborted anthers, rarely these stamens are 

 perfect. 



Pistil. — Ovary superior, conical, ultimately eight-celled ; styles 

 four, slender, spreading ; stigma two-lobed. 



Fruit. — A juicy berry containing one to eight seeds, crowned with 

 the remnants of the style and seated in the enlarged calyx ; depressed- 

 globular, pale orange color, often red-cheeked ; with slight bloom, 

 turning yellowish brown after freezing. Flesh astringent while green, 

 sweet and luscious when ripe. 



They have a plumb which they call pessemmins, hke to a medler, in England, 

 but of a deeper tawnie cuUour ; they grow on a most high tree. When they are 

 not fully ripe, they are harsh and choakie, and furre in a man's mouth like allam, 

 howbeit. being taken fully ripe, yt is a reasonable pleasant fruict, somewhat 

 lushious. I have seene our people put them into their baked and sodden pud- 

 dings : there be whose tast allows them to be as pretious as the English apri- 

 cock ; I confess it is a good kind of horse plumb. 



— " The Historic of Travaile into Virginia Brittania." 



The longest pole takes the Persimmon. — Southern Proverb. 



The Persimmon is one of the most interesting of our na- 

 tive trees. Its habitat is southern, it appears along the coast 

 from New York to Florida ; west of the Alieghanies it is 

 found in southern Ohio and along through southeastern 

 Iowa and southern Missouri ; when it reaches Louisiana, 

 eastern Kansas and the Indian Territory it becomes a 

 mighty tree, one hundred and fifteen feet high. It can be 

 grown in northern Ohio only by the greatest care, and in 

 southern Ohio its fruit is never edible until after frost. 



The peculiar characteristics of its fruit have made the tree 

 well known. This fruit is a globular berry, from an inch to 

 an inch and a half in diameter, varying as to seeds, some- 

 times with eight and sometimes without any. It bears at its 

 ape-\ the remnants of the styles and sits in the enlarged and 



196 



