12 
BULLETIN 1436, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
only one-half the volume of the trunk. The heartwood in either 
dogwood or persimmon may sometimes be as small as a lead pencil ; 
then again it may be in dogwood 2 or 3 inches in diameter, and in a 
mature persimmon tree as much as 7 or 8 inches in diameter. 
(Fig. 7.) 
The heartwood of dogwood varies in color from a reddish brown to 
a chocolate brown ; the sap wood from pinkish to light brown. Per- 
simmon sapwood when freshly cut is creamy white, although in the 
log the exuding sap gives the cross section a greenish-yellow appear- 
ance. When the sapwood of persimmon changes to heartwood it 
darkens and becomes streaky. 
Fig. 7. — Persimmon bolts ready for the ripsaw. Note varying sizes of heartwood 
STRUCTURE 
As neither dogwood nor persimmon grows rapidly, the annual rings 
are usually narrow. Both are diffuse-porous woods. (Fig. 8.) In 
other words, the pores, or vessels through which the sap passes, are 
fairly uniform in size and are fairly evenly distributed throughout 
the annual growth ring. Although there is relatively little contrast 
between spring wood and summer wood, there is sufficient to dif- 
ferentiate the annual rings so that they can be seen with the naked 
eye. The summer wood of dogwood is slightly less porous and more 
orange colored than the spring wood. 
The pores of persimmon, although not so numerous, are compara- 
tively large, especially in the spring wood, decreasing somewhat 
toward the summer wood. Because of the greater size of the pores 
of persimmon and the comparative unevenness of their distribution 
the wood is not quite so uniform or fine textured as is dogwood. 
