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American persimmon

Diospyros virginiana

Summary 6

Diospyros virginiana is a persimmon species commonly called the American persimmon, common persimmon, eastern persimmon, "simmon", "possumwood", "possum apples", or "sugar-plum". It ranges from southern Connecticut/Long Island to Florida, and west to Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa. The tree grows wild but has been cultivated for its fruit and wood since prehistoric times by Native Americans.

Description 7

General: Ebony family (Ebenaceae). Native trees growing 5-12 (-21) meters tall; mature bark dark-gray, thick and blocky. Leaves are deciduous, simple, alternate, ovate to elliptic or oblong with smooth edges, 3.5-8 cm long, with an acuminate apex and rounded base, the lower surface usually lighter-colored, especially on young leaves. Flowers are either male (staminate) or female (pistillate), borne on separate trees (the species dioecious) on shoots of the current year after leafing; pistillate flowers solitary, sessile or short-stalked, bell-shaped, ca. 2 cm long, the corolla creamy to greenish-yellow, fragrant, usually with 4 thick, recurved lobes; staminate flowers in 2-3-flowered clusters, tubular, 8-13 mm long, greenish-yellow. Fruit is a berry 2-5 cm wide, greenish to yellowish with highly astringent pulp before ripening, turning yellowish-orange to reddish-orange and sweet in the fall, each fruit with 1-8 flat seeds. The common name, persimmon, is the American Indian word for the fruit.

Variation within the species: variants have been described but are not generally formally recognized.

Var. pubescens (Pursh) Dipp. - Fuzzy persimmon

Var. platycarpa Sarg. - Oklahoma persimmon

Var. mosieri (Small) Sarg. - Florida persimmon

Distribution: Primarily a species of the east-central and southeastern U.S., with the southeast corner of its range in Texas, reaching northeast to New York and southern Connecticut, westward through southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Missouri and southeastern Kansas. It does not grow in the main range of the Appalachian Mountains nor in much of the oak-hickory forest of the Allegheny Plateau. For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.

Description 8

More info for the terms: dioecious, tree

Common persimmon is a slow-growing, thicket-forming, dioecious,
deciduous tree up to 70 feet (21 m) but generally less than 40 feet (12
m) tall [8].  It has a rounded or conical crown with the branches
spreading at right angles.  The twigs are self-pruning and form an
irregular shaped crown.  The leaves are simple, alternate, entire, and
elliptical to oblong.  The fruit is a persistent spherical berry; each
berry contains one to eight flat seeds [10,13,31].

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) MAC Camacho-Viera, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by MAC Camacho-Viera
  2. (c) Steven J. Baskauf, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/24366
  3. (c) gypsyrose, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
  4. (c) bruce_crossing, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/79882121@N02/7174157914/
  5. (c) Patrick Phoebus, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/phoebusp/2324
  6. Adapted by Amber Leung from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diospyros_virginiana
  7. Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/1383013
  8. Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24641200

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