Diospyros virginiana is a persimmon species commonly called the American persimmon, eastern persimmon, simmon, possumwood, possum apples, or sugar plum. It ranges from southern Connecticut to Florida, and west to Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa. The tree grows in the wild but has been cultivated for its fruit and wood since prehistoric times by Native Americans. Both the tree and the fruit are referred to as persimmons, with the latter appearing in desserts and cuisine in the U.S. South and Midwest.

The tree is typically dioecious, so one must have both male and female plants to obtain fruit.

Commercial varieties include the very productive Early Golden, the productive John Rick, Miller, Woolbright and the Ennis, a seedless variety. Another nickname of the American persimmon, 'date-plum' also refers to a persimmon species found in South Asia and South Europe, Diospyros lotus. Today, persimmons are also grown on small farms as a heritage crop.

Description

The common persimmon is a generally small to medium sized tree, usually in height, but reaching west of the southern Mississippi.

The plant 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 fruit-stalk is very short, bearing a subglobose fruit an inch in diameter or a bit larger, of an orange-yellow color, ranging to bluish, 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.

  • 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. Specific gravity, 0.7908; weight of cubic foot, . The heartwood is a true ebony. Forestry texts indicate that about a century of growth is required before a tree will produce a commercially viable yield of ebony wood. The termite resistance of the wood is attributed to the component 7-methlyjuglone.
  • 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 (152 mm) 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; dioecious 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. The fragrant flowers are pollinated by insects and wind.
  • 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. The boundary between these races has not been well defined except in Kentucky, where hexaploid persimmons were in the majority in Bullitt County but were not present in Barren County to its south nor Franklin County to its east.

It has been observed that the tetraploid trees tend to grow much taller than the hexaploid trees and have smaller fruit, but no formal research has been done into these differences of traits.

The vast majority of named American Persimmon cultivars are hexaploid, with the only known tetraploid cultivars being Ennis Seedless, Weeping, Sugar Bear, and SFES.

Cultivation

The American persimmon mostly grows wild. Experimental research stations in the 1890s tested native varieties of persimmon, but interest in cultivation of the native persimmon has been limited. Newly planted persimmon trees take a relatively long time to bear fruit. There are many sorts of fruit trees that are easier to grow for commercial purposes. Wild varieties contain a lot of seeds, making the processing of fruit pulp used in food and beverage manufacture more difficult. Cultivation has reduced the number of seeds, and some varieties have developed a very sweet flavor profile without the dreaded astringency of wild persimmon. Harvested fruits are shelf durable.

The tree prefers light, sandy, well-drained soil, but will grow in rich southern bottom lands.

  • Killen

The ripe fruit may be eaten raw by humans, typically once bletted, or it can be cooked or dried. The fruit pulp can be made into pie, pudding, jam, or made into brandy.

The wood is heavy, strong and very close-grained and used in woodturning.

References

  • The Perfectly Pleasing Persimmon (Dan Nickrent)
  • Bioimages.vanderbilt.edu: Diospyros virginiana images
  • Persimmonpudding.com - dedicated to growing, education, and use of Diospyros virginiana, the Common or American persimmon
  • Treetrail.net: Diospyros virginiana (American Persimmon) Native Range Distribution Map