American persimmon
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| American Persimmon | ||||||||||||||
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 Botanical details of buds, flowers and fruit
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| Diospyros virginiana L. |
Diospyros virginiana, the American persimmon, is known by a variety of names including common persimmon, 'simmon, and possumwood. This range of this tree is roughly that of the Southeastern United States. Its ranges from New England to Florida, and west to Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The tree grows wild but has been cultivated for its fruit and wood since prehistoric times by Native Americans.
D. virginiana grows to 20 meters (65.62 feet), in well-drained soil. The tree produces fragrant flowers in summer, the flowers are dioecious so both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required. The flowers are pollinated by insects and wind. Fruiting typically begins when the tree is about six years old.
The fruit of the American persimmon is round or oval. The fruit color is usually orange, ranging to black. In the American South and Midwest, the fruits of the American persimmon are referred to as simply persimmons or "'simmons", and are popular in desserts and cuisine. Fruit size varies from 2 - 6 centimeters (0.79 - 2.36 inches).
Commercial varieties include the very productive Early Golden, the productive John Rick, Woolbright, and Miller and the Ennis–seedless variety. Another nickname of the American persimmon, the 'date-plum', actually refers to a variety of persimmon found in South Asia, Diospyros lotus.
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[edit] Description
Small tree usually varying from thirty to eighty feet in height, short slender trunk, spreading, often pendulous branches, which form sometimes a broad and sometimes a narrow round-topped head. Roots thick, fleshy and stoloniferous. Given to shrubby growth.[1]
The tree has oval entire leaves, and unisexual flowers on short stalks. In the male flowers, which are numerous, the stamens are sixteen in number and arranged in pairs; the female flowers are solitary, with traces of stamens, and a smooth ovary with one ovule in each of the eight cells—the ovary is surmounted by four styles, which are hairy at the base. The furit-stalk is very short, bearing a subglobose fruit an inch or rather more in diameter, of an orange-yellow color, and with a sweetish astringent pulp. It is surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx-lobes, which increase in size as the fruit ripens. The astringency renders the fruit somewhat unpalatable, but after it has been subjected to the action of frost, or has become partially rotted or "bletted" like a medlar, its flavor is improved.[2]
- Bark: Dark brown or dark gray, deeply divided into plates whose surface is scaly. Branchlets slender, zigzag, with thick pith or large pith cavity; at first light reddish brown and pubescent. They vary in color from light brown to ashy gray and finally become reddish brown, the bark somewhat broken by longitudinal fissures. Astringent and bitter.
- Wood: Very dark; sapwood yellowish white; heavy, hard, strong and very close grained. Sp. gr., 0.7908; weight of cu. ft., 49.28 lbs.
- Winter buds: Ovate, acute, one-eighth of an inch long, covered with thick reddish or purple scales. These scales are sometimes persistent at the base of the branchlets.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, four to six inches long, oval, narrowed or rounded or cordate at base, entire, acute or acuminate. They come out of the bud revolute, thin, pale, reddish green, downy with ciliate margins, when full grown are thick, dark green, shining above, pale and often pubescent beneath. In autumn they sometimes turn orange or scarlet, sometimes fall without change of color. Midrib broad and flat, primary veins opposite and conspicuous. Petioles stout, pubescent, one-half to an inch in length.
- Flowers: May, June, when leaves are half-grown; diœcious or rarely polygamous. Staminate flowers borne in two to three-flowered cymes; the pedicels downy and bearing two minute bracts. Pistillate flowers solitary, usually on separate trees, their pedicels short, recurved, and bearing two bractlets.
- Calyx: Usually four-lobed, accrescent under the fruit.
- Corolla: Greenish yellow or creamy white, tubular, four-lobed; lobes imbricate in bud.
- Stamens: Sixteen, inserted on the corolla, in staminate flowers in two rows. Filaments short, slender, slightly hairy; anthers oblong, introrse, two-celled, cells opening longitudinally. In pistillate flowers the stamens are eight with aborted anthers, rarely these stamens are perfect.
- Pistil: Ovary superior, conical, ultimately eight-celled; styles four, slender, spreading; stigma two-lobed.
- Fruit: A juicy berry containing one to eight seeds, crowned with the remnants of the style and seated in the enlarged calyx; depressed-globular, pale orange color, often red-cheeked; with slight bloom, turning yellowish brown after freezing. Flesh astringent while green, sweet and luscious when ripe.[1]
[edit] Distribution
The tree is very common in the South Atlantic and Gulf states, and attains its largest size in the basin of the Mississippi.[2] Its habitat is southern, it appears along the coast from New York to Florida; west of the Alleghanies it is found in southern Ohio and along through southeastern Iowa and southern Missouri; when it reaches Louisiana, eastern Kansas and Oklahoma it becomes a mighty tree, one hundred and fifteen feet high.[1]
Its fossil remains have been found in the miocene rocks of Greenland and Alaska and in the cretaceous formation of Nebraska.[1]
[edit] Uses
The peculiar characteristics of its fruit have made the tree well known. This fruit is a globular berry, from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, with variation in the number of seeds, sometimes with eight and sometimes without any. It bears at its apex the remnants of the styles and sits in the enlarged and persistent calyx. It ripens in late autumn, is pale orange with a red cheek, often covered with a slight glaucous bloom. One common joke among Southerners is to induce strangers to taste unripe persimmon fruit, as its very astringent bitterness is shocking to those unfamiliar with it. Folklore states that frost is required to make it edible, but fully-ripened fruit lightly shaken from the tree or found on the ground below the tree is sweet, juicy and delicious. The peculiar astringency of the fruit is due to the presence of a tannin similar to that of Cinchona. The fruit is much appreciated in the southern states and is abundant in the markets.
The fruit is high in vitamin C. The unripe fruit is extremely astringent. The ripe fruit may be eaten raw, cooked or dried. Molasses can be made from the fruit pulp. A tea can be made from the leaves and the roasted seed is used as a coffee substitute. Other popular uses include desserts such as persimmon pie, persimmon pudding, or persimmon candy.
The fruit is eaten in great quantities in the southern states of America, and is also fermented with hops, corn-meal or wheat-bran into a sort of beer or made into brandy. The wood is heavy, strong and very close-grained and used in turnery.[2]
[edit] Cultivation
Prefers a light, sandy, well-drained soil, but will grow in rich, southern, bottom lands. It can be grown in northern Ohio only by the greatest of care, and in southern Ohio its fruit is never edible until after frost.[1]
The tree is greatly inclined to vary in the character and quality of its fruit, in size this varies from that of a small cherry to a small apple. Some trees in the south produce fruit that is delicious without the action of the frost, while adjoining trees produce fruit that never becomes edible.[1]
It was brought to England before 1629 and is cultivated, but rarely if ever ripens its fruit. It is easily raised from seed and can also be propagated from stolons, which are often produced in great quantity. The tree is hardy in the south of England and in the Channel Islands.[2]
In respect to the power of making heartwood, the Locust and the Persimmon stand at the extreme opposite ends of the list. The Locust changes its sapwood into heartwood almost at once, while the Persimmon rarely develops any heartwood until it is nearly one hundred years old. This heartwood is extremely close-grained and almost black. Really, it is ebony, but the North American climate is not favorable to its production. The ebony of commerce is derived from five different tropical species of the genus, two from India, one from Africa, one from Malaya and one from Mauritius. The beautiful variegated coromandel wood is the product of a species found in Ceylon.[1]
