THE CITRUS WHITE FLY: FOOD PLANTS. 41 
might well be compared in its injurious influence on citrus-growing 
interests to one or more umbrella or China trees. The privet, like 
the cape jessamine, is hardy, and the disadvantages of the former in 
this connection are the same as those mentioned in discussing the 
latter food plant. 
JAPANESE AND WILD PERSIMMONS. 
Japanese and wild persimmons are attractive to the citrus white 
fly early in the season, but appear to be very little or not at all so 
late in the season. Being deciduous, their economic importance as 
white fly food plants is proportionally small. Under certain condi- 
tions the Japanese persimmons appear much more attractive to the 
citrus white fly than citrus trees. These conditions have not been 
investigated, but they are probably dependent upon the appearance 
of new growth in the spring a little earlier on persimmon than on 
citrus. On June 16, 1909, an examination of a large bearing per- 
simmon tree surrounded by citrus nursery trees and bearing citrus 
trees of different kinds showed that the first spring growth of the 
persimmon was much more attractive to the first brood of adults 
than were the citrus trees. The second brood of adults, however, 
found the persimmon comparatively unattractive and showed a 
marked preference for the citrus trees. The earliest citrus growth of 
the spring had become fully matured, and no new growth appeared 
until after the second brood of adults had practically disappeared. 
The comparative condition of infestation is shown by counts made 
on leaves picked at random from the persimmon tree and from the 
surrounding citrus trees, including the sweet orange, sour orange, 
tangerine, and grapefruit. The average infestation with first- 
generation forms of the citrus white fly on 25 leaves each of per- 
simmon and citrus was in the ratio of 10.9 to 1.3, while that of the 
same number of leaves by the second generation was in the ratio of 
no forms on the persimmon leaves as compared with 191 on the citrus, 
thus showing the great preference of the second generation of adults 
for citrus growth. 
Neither the Japanese nor the wild persimmons are usually infested 
by the citrus white fly to the extent of causing noticeable blackening 
from sooty mold. The infestation, however, might be between from 
five to ten times as great as on the leaves from the trees referred to above 
without producing this result. Small wild persimmon bushes have 
been observed in a growing condition at the time the adults of the sec- 
ond brood are on the wing, and at such times they sometimes appear to 
be very attractive as food plants. Mr. W. W. Yothers has observed 
near Hawthorn, Fla., on April 29, 1909, the citrus white fly on wild 
persimmon bushes growing in pine woods at distances upward to one- 
