Description
Diospyros – Persimmon – Ebony –
There are about 475 species of deciduous or evergreen trees and shrubs, in this genus. They occur in forest in tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate regions worldwide especially in Asia and America. They are grown for their attractive habit, their bold, alternate, smooth, lance shaped to broadly ovate, simple, often glossy (sometimes heart shaped bases), which are colorful in autumn, and their fleshy, pear like, edible fruit. On previous years wood it bears bell or urn shaped, male and female flowers are usually borne on separate plants, and flowers have a rolled back petals and a leaf like calyx. In cool temperate climates, the species make attractive specimen tree, but most need long warm summers to fruit well. Timber and fruit is of economic importance.
With such a large and diverse genus it is difficult to generalize growing requirements. They are frost hardy to frost tender and generally like deep, fertile, moist but well drained loamy soil in full sun, preferably sheltered from cold, drying winds, and late frosts.
Prone to fruit rot, wood rot, anthranose, Acremonium wilt, powdery mildew, and a variety of fungal spots, and blights are common.
D. virginiana – American Persimmon – Possumwood – This large, upright, deciduous tree from Eastern USA grows 50-100′ feet tall and 35′ feet wide in the wild but in cultivation it is usually 20-30′ feet tall. It has a distinctive “alligator-hide” bark and oval, simple, glossy, dark green leaves, to 5″ long, paler beneath, which turn red in autumn. It bears cream flowers, 3/8-3/4″ long, both male and female on the same tree, or dioecious, followed by sweet edible, spherical, yellow-orange fruit, to 1 ½” across ripening to orange or purple-red The timber (white ebony is valued for its durability. It is more drought tolerant then others.
Zones 4-9
