Diospyros 997 



glabrous leaves. The buds and leaf-scars of the two species are very different, and 

 constitute the best marks of distinction. 



In winter, the American Persimmon (Plate 200, Fig. 4) shows the following 

 characters : — Twigs slender, covered with a minute dense erect pubescence, with two 

 broadly ovate scales (of the previous season's bud) persisting at the base of the shoot. 

 Leaf-scars, oblique on prominent pulvini, small, semicircular, with a deep transverse 

 lunate depression, showing indistinctly the coalesced cicatrices of the vascular 

 bundles. True terminal bud not formed, the tip of the branchlet dying off in 

 summer and leaving at the apex of the twig a short glabrous stump with a terminal 

 scar, which subtends the uppermost axillary bud. Buds ovoid, slightly compressed, 

 small, brown, shining, glabrous, usually with a minute curved beak tipped by a few 

 hairs ; outer scales two, imbricate, ovate, acute, non-ciliate, concave interiorly, 

 pubescent at the tip, glabrous elsewhere. 



This species is widely distributed in the United States, its most northerly point 

 being at Newhaven in Connecticut. It is not uncommon in Long Island, and extends 

 southwards to Alabama and Florida, and westwards through Ohio and Iowa to Missouri, 

 Arkansas, Louisiana, eastern Kansas, Indian Territory, and the valley of the Colorado 

 River in Texas. It usually grows on light, sandy, well-drained soil, but attains its 

 largest size in the deep alluvial lands of the Mississippi basin, where it sometimes 

 reaches a height of more than 100 feet, with a slender trunk free from branches for 

 70 or 80 feet. It is exceedingly common in the south Atlantic and Gulf States, 

 often covering with its suckers abandoned fields, and springing up by the sides of 

 roads and fences. Sargent ^ gives a figure of a tree with wide-spreading branches, 

 not unlike the specimen at Kew in size and appearance, which is growing in an old 

 corn-field near Auburn in Alabama. 



Elwes saw a fine tree of this species in a damp river bottom near Mount Carmel, 

 Illinois, in 1904, which measured 100 feet high by 6 feet in girth, with a clean, 

 straight trunk 60 feet high ; but the late Dr. Schneck, who showed it to him, 

 measured one as much as 1 1 5 feet high, 80 feet to the first limb, and only 5 J feet in 

 girth at the base. When growing in open fields or along road-sides, where it is 

 most frequently seen, it forms a more spreading tree, usually 30 to 40, and rarely 

 more than 60 feet high. (A. H.) 



Cultivation 



This tree is easy to raise from seed, and perfectly hardy in England, but requires 

 a warm, dry soil, and a much hotter summer than usual to make it thrive. The 

 seedlings which I have raised grow very slowly and do not root freely in my soil. 

 Judging from the extreme rarity of the tree in cultivation, it is hardly likely to be 

 worth planting generally, and, so far as we know, has never borne fruit in England. 

 Even in the climate of central France it fruits, according to Pardd,'' very rarely, and 

 grows slowly, having only attained about 20 feet in height at Les Barres. Neither 



» Gardm and Forest, viu. 262, fig. 38 (1895)- ' Arboretum Nat. des Barres, 215 (1906). 



