1. DIOSPYROS L.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, without a terminal bud, scaly axillary buds, coriaceous leaves revolute in the bud, and fibrous roots. Flowers mostly diœcious, from the axils of leaves of the year or of the previous year; staminate smaller than the pistillate and usually in short few-flowered bracted cymes; pistillate generally solitary; calyx 4-lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud, accrescent under the fruit; corolla 4-lobed, the lobes sinistrorsely contorted in the bud, more or less contracted in the throat, the lobes spreading or recurved; stamens usually 16, inserted on the bottom of the corolla in two rows and in pairs, those of the outer row rather longer than and opposite those of the inner row; filaments free, slender; anthers oblong, apiculate, the cells opening laterally by longitudinal slits; stamens rudimentary or 0 in the pistillate flower; ovary usually 4-celled, each cell more or less completely divided by the development of a false longitudinal partition from its anterior face, rudimentary or 0 in the staminate flower; styles 4, spreading, 2-lobed at apex; stigmas 2-parted or lobed; ovule solitary in each of the divisions of the cells. Fruit globose, oblong or conic, 1—10-seeded, surrounded at base by the enlarged persistent calyx. Seeds pendulous, oblong, compressed; seed-coat thick and bony, dark, more or less lustrous; embryo axile, straight or somewhat curved; cotyledons foliaceous, ovate or lanceolate; radicle superior, cylindric, turned toward the small hilum.
Diospyros, which is chiefly tropical, is widely distributed with more than two hundred species in the two hemispheres, with a few species extending beyond the tropics into eastern North America, eastern Asia, southwestern Asia, and the Mediterranean region.
Diospyros produces hard close-grained valuable wood, with dark or black heartwood and thick soft yellow sapwood. The ebony of commerce is partly produced by different tropical species. The fruit is often edible, and some of the species are important fruit-trees in China and Japan.
The generic name, from Διός and πυρός, is in allusion to the life-giving properties of the fruit.
CONSPECTUS OF THE SPECIES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Flowers on branchlets of the year; anthers opening longitudinally nearly throughout their entire length; filaments pubescent; pistillate flowers with 8 rudimentary stamens; ovary nearly glabrous; leaves oval; fruit green, yellow, orange color or rarely black.1. [D. virginiana] (A, C). Flowers on branchlets of the previous year; anthers opening only near the apex; filaments glabrous; pistillate flowers without rudimentary stamens; ovary pubescent; leaves cuneate-oblong or obovate; fruit black.2. [D. texana] (C).
1. [Diospyros virginiana] L. Persimmon.
Leaves ovate-oblong to oval or elliptic, acuminate or abruptly acuminate at apex, narrowed and cuneate or rounded or rarely broad and rounded at base, coriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 4′—6′ long and 2′—3′ wide, with a broad flat midrib, about six pairs of conspicuous primary veins arcuate near the margins and reticulate veinlets; falling in the autumn usually without much change of color; petioles stout, glabrous or slightly villose-pubescent, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers appearing when the leaves are more than half grown on branchlets of the year, from March in the extreme south to June in the north; the staminate in 2—3-flowered pubescent pedunculate cymes, on pedicels from the axils of minute lanceolate acute caducous bracts and furnished near the middle with two minute-caducous bractlets; the pistillate solitary, on short recurved pedicels, bibracteolate with conspicuous acute bractlets ciliate on the margins and often ¼′ in length; corolla of the staminate flower tubular, ½′ long, slightly contracted below the short acute reflexed lobes forming before expansion a pointed 4-angled bud rather longer than the broad-ovate acute foliaceous ciliate calyx-lobes inflexed on the margins; stamens with short slightly hairy filaments and linear-lanceolate anthers opening throughout their length; pistillate flower ¾′ long, with a greenish yellow or creamy white corolla nearly ½′ broad; stamens 8, inserted in one row below the middle of the corolla, with short filaments and sagittate abortive or sometimes fertile anthers; ovary conic, pilose toward the apex, ultimately 8-celled, and gradually narrowed into the four slender styles hairy at the base. Fruit on a short thick stem, ripening at the north late in autumn or earlier southward, often persistent on the branches during the winter, depressed-globose to ovoid or slightly obovoid, rounded or pointed at apex, ¾′—2′ in diameter, yellow or pale orange color, often with a bright cheek, and covered with a glaucous bloom, turning yellowish brown when partly decayed by freezing, surrounded at base by the spreading calyx 1′—1½′ in diameter, with broad ovate pointed lobes recurved on the margins; flesh austere while green, yellowish brown, sweet and luscious when fully ripened by the action of frost, or in some forms remaining hard and green during the winter; seeds oblong, rounded on the dorsal edge, nearly straight on the ventral edge, rounded at the ends, much flattened, ½′ long and ⅓′ wide, with a thick hard pale brown rugose testa, a narrow pale hilum and a slender raphe.
A tree, occasionally 50°—60° high, with a short trunk 16′—20′ in diameter, spreading often pendulous branches forming a broad or narrow round-topped head, and slender slightly zigzag glabrous or rarely puberulous branchlets with a thick pith-cavity, light brown when they first appear, becoming during their first winter light brown or ashy gray and marked by occasional small orange-colored lenticels and by elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars, with deep horizontal lunate depressions; or in the primeval forest, under the most favorable conditions, sometimes 100°—130° high, with a long slender trunk free of branches for 70°—80° and rarely exceeding 2° in diameter; frequently not more than 15° or 20° high and sometimes shrubby in habit. Winter-buds: axillary, broad-ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with thick imbricated dark red-brown or purple lustrous scales often persistent at the base of young branchlets during the season. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1′ thick, dark brown tinged with red, or dark gray, and deeply divided into thick square plates broken into thin persistent scales, with heavy strong dark brown sometimes nearly black heartwood often undeveloped until the tree is over one hundred years old; used in turnery, for shoe-lasts, plane-stocks, and preferred for shuttles to other American woods. The fruit contains tannin, to which it owes its astringent qualities, and is eaten in great quantities in the southern states. The inner bark is astringent and bitter.
Distribution. Light sandy well drained soil, or in the Mississippi basin sometimes on the deep rich bottom-lands of river valleys; Lighthouse Point, New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut, and Long Island, New York, through southern Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana and Illinois, to southeastern Iowa, eastern Kansas, central Oklahoma, and southward to De Soto County, Florida, southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to the valley of the Colorado River (Burnet County); very common in the south Atlantic and Gulf states, often covering with shrubby growth by means of the stoloniferous roots abandoned fields and springing up by the side of roads and fences; ascending on the Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 3500°; rare toward the western limits of its range in Texas. In Missouri and Arkansas passing into the var. platycarpa Sarg. with larger broad-ovate leaves rounded or cordate at base or rarely elliptic, more or less densely pubescent on the lower surface, especially on the midrib and petiole, often 2½′—4′ long and 2′—2½′ wide, and at the end of vigorous shoots up to 6′ in length, and depressed-globose, yellow, rarely nearly black (f. atra Sarg.), fruit much depressed at top and bottom, 1¾′—3′ wide and about 1′ high, with sweet succulent flesh, ripening in September or early October, and seeds conspicuously rounded on the dorsal edge, much compressed, dark chestnut-brown and lustrous, only slightly rugose, ¾′ long and ½′ wide. A tree usually not more than 12°—25° high, with a trunk 16′—30′ in diameter and rather stouter branchlets densely villose-pubescent sometimes for two or three years, or becoming glabrate at the end of their first season. Hills near Allenton, St. Louis County, and on the western slopes of the Ozark Mountains and the adjacent prairies of southeastern Missouri and prairies of northwestern Arkansas, eastern Kansas and Oklahoma. In Dade County, Florida, Diospyros virginiana is replaced by the var. Mosieri Sarg. with smaller staminate flowers, nearly globose fruit with rather less compressed dark chestnut-brown lustrous only slightly rugose seeds. A small tree with slightly fissured light gray bark.
Several named varieties of Diospyros virginiana are distinguished and cultivated by pomologists.
2. [Diospyros texana] Scheele. Black Persimmon. Chapote.
Leaves oblong-cuneate to obovate, rounded and often retuse at apex and cuneate at base, covered below when they unfold with thick pale tomentum and above with scattered long white hairs, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous, glabrous or puberulous on the upper surface, paler and pubescent on the lower surface, ¾′—1½′ long and nearly 1′ wide, with a broad midrib and about 4 pairs of arcuate primary veins and reticulate veinlets; unfolding in February and March, and falling during the following winter without change of color; petioles short, thick, and hairy. Flowers appearing in early spring when the leaves are about one third grown, on branches of the previous year; staminate on slender drooping pedicels furnished near the middle with minute caducous bractlets, in 1—3-flowered crowded pubescent fascicles; pistillate on stouter club-shaped pedicels, solitary or rarely in pairs; calyx of the staminate flower ⅛′ long and deeply divided into 5 ovate or lanceolate silky-tomentose lobes recurved after the opening of the flower, and much shorter than the corolla ⅛′ long, creamy white, and slightly contracted below the 5 short spreading rounded lobes ciliate on the margins; stamens, with glabrous filaments shorter than the corolla, and linear-lanceolate anthers opening at apex only by short slits; pistillate flowers without rudimentary stamens, ⅓′ long, with oblong acute silky-tomentose calyx-lobes half the length of the pubescent corolla nearly ½′ across the short spreading lobes; ovary ovoid, pubescent like the young fruit, ultimately 8-celled. Fruit ripening in August, subglobose, ½′—1′ in diameter, and 3—8-seeded, surrounded at base by the large thickened leathery calyx sometimes 1′ in diameter, with oblong pubescent reflexed lobes, the thick tough black skin inclosing thin sweet insipid juicy dark flesh; seeds triangular, rounded on the back, narrowed and flattened at the pointed apex, ⅓′ long, about ⅛′ thick, with a bony lustrous light red pitted coat.
An intricately branched tree, occasionally 40°—50° high, with a trunk 18′—20′ in diameter, dividing at some distance above the ground into a number of stout upright branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender terete slightly zigzag branchlets, coated at first with pale or rufous tomentum, ashy gray, glabrous or puberulous during their first winter, later becoming brown and marked by minute pale lenticels and by small elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying a lunate row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars; often much smaller, and toward the northern and western limits of its range a low many-stemmed shrub. Winter-buds obtuse, barely more than 1/16′ long, with broad-ovate scales rounded on the back and coated with rufous tomentum. Bark of the trunk smooth, light gray slightly tinged with red, the outer layer falling away in large irregularly shaped patches displaying the smooth gray inner bark. Wood heavy, with black heartwood often streaked with yellow and clear bright yellow sapwood; used in turnery and for the handles of tools. The fruit, which is exceedingly austere until it is fully ripe, stains black, and is sometimes used by Mexicans in the valley of the Rio Grande to dye sheepskins.
Distribution. Southwestern Texas, Matagorda County (neighborhood of Matagorda and Bay City) to the lower Rio Grande, and northward to San Saba, Lampasas and Bexar Counties; in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas; possibly in southern Lower California; abundant in western and southern Texas: in the neighborhood of the coast on the borders of prairies in rich moist soil; westward on dry rocky mesas and in isolated cañons; very common and of its largest size in the region between the Sierra Madre and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.