Diospyros virginiana - Persimmon Tree Facts & Pictures

Common Persimmon Fact Sheet

Family: Ebenaceae - Ebony family
Latin name: Diospyros virginiana
Common name: Persimmon, Common persimmon, American persimmon

	Habit: Persimmon trees are normally 30 to 60 feet tall at maturity but in the best habitats they may reach a height of 70 to 80 feet and a diameter of 20 to 24 inches. It usually forms an upright or drooping type tree with a rounded or conical crown. Stems may be clumped, either because seedlings develop close to one another or because they grow from suckers after a tree has been cut down.

	Bark in younger trees: gray-brown with orange in the fissures. Bark in older trees: brown to black and broken into rectangular checkered sections.

	Twig: Slender, light brown to gray, no true terminal bud and twig scar is often very prominent, buds are dark red to black with 2 bud scales, triangular in shape, appressed; leaf scar has one, oval vascular bundle trace.

	Leaves:

	Fruit: a persistent spherical berry 1.9 to 5.1 cm (0.8 to 2.0 in) in diameter. It ripens from September to November or occasionally a little earlier. When mature it is yellow to orange or dark red in color, often with a glaucous bloom. Each berry usually contains one to eight flat, brown seeds about 13 mm (0.5 in) long but is sometimes seedless. Fruits fall from September to late winter. American persimmons are dioecious; trees are generally either male or female. The fruit is astringent until it is ripe.

All photos on this page were taken at The Morton Arboretum.

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Dilleniidae
Order	Ebenales
Family	Ebenaceae – Ebony family
Genus	Diospyros L. – diospyros
Species	Diospyros virginiana L. – common persimmon

References:

USDA, NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 4 January 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Please ask for permission before using my photographs. Larger sizes and additional photographs of the tree are often available.