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.