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| ## common persimmon {#common-persimmon .Title-Header}                 |
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| *Diospyros virginiana* L.                                             |
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| Plant Symbol = DIVI5                                                  |
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####### *Contributed By: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & the Biota of North America Program*

####### Alternate Names 

Eastern persimmon, possumwood, American ebony, white ebony, bara-bara,
boa-wood, butterwood

####### Uses

Common persimmon is sometimes used as an ornamental for its hardiness,
adaptability to a wide range of soils and climates, and immunity from
disease and insects. Moist, well-drained soils provide best conditions
but the plant will tolerate hot, dry, poor soils, including various city
conditions. The species is rarely sold commercially, however. The leaves
are glossy and leathery and may be yellow or reddish-purple in the fall.
Several cultivars have been selected primarily for fruit color, taste,
size, and early maturation; several are seedless. Budded or grafted
trees are a sure way of getting a desired type. Common persimmon sends
down a deep taproot, which makes it a good species for erosion control
but makes it difficult to transplant.

The wood of common persimmon is hard, smooth, and even textured. The
hardness and shock resistance make it ideal for textile shuttles and
heads for driver golf clubs. The heartwood is used for veneer and
specialty items, but most of commercially used persimmon is reported to
consist of sapwood. ![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.5972222222222223in"
height="3.9in"}

Unripe fruit and inner bark have been used in the treatment of fever,
diarrhea, and hemorrhage. The fruits are used in puddings, cookies,
cakes, custard, and sherbet; the dried, roasted, ground seeds have been
used as a substitute for coffee. Flowers produce nectar significant for
bees in honey production. Leaves and twigs of common persimmon are eaten
in fall and winter by white-tailed deer. The fruit is eaten by squirrel,
fox, skunk, deer, bear, coyote, raccoon, opossum, and various birds,
including quail, wild turkey, cedar waxwing, and catbird.

####### Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status
and wetland indicator values.

####### Description

*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.

####### Adaptation 

Common persimmon grows over a wide range of conditions from dry,
sterile, sandy woodlands to river bottoms to rocky hillsides. Growth is
best on terraces of large streams and river bottoms with clays and heavy
loams; usual sites in the Mississippi Delta are wet flats, shallow
sloughs, and swamp margins. It thrives in full sun but also is
shade-tolerant and can persist in the understory. It is an early pioneer
on abandoned and denuded cropland and is common on roadsides and
fencerows. Common persimmon often is seen as thickets (derived from root
suckers) in open fields and pastures. This species flowers in March-June
and fruits in September-November.

####### Establishment

Fruit may be produced by 10-year-old trees but optimum fruit-bearing age
is 25-50 years. Good fruit crops are borne every 2 years. Seeds are
dispersed by birds and animals and by overflow water in bottomlands.
Persimmon is slow growing and usually does not make a large tree,
although it may reach 21-24 meters tall on optimal sites. Trees have
been reported to reach 150 years of age.

####### Management

Common persimmon usually is considered undesirable by growers of closely
managed timber stands. It has been controlled by prescribed burns but is
also known to decrease with fire exclusion. Roots and rootstocks are
killed by severe fires that char the soil; less severe fires top-kill
the plant. Vigorous sprouts are produced from the root collar following
top-kill by fire or after cutting. Deer occasionally browse the sprouts
but cattle usually avoid them. Thickets from root suckers and collar
sprouts in pastures may be problematic. Various herbicides are used to
kill the plants.

The principal natural defoliators of common persimmon are the webworm
(*Seiarctica echo*) and the hickory horned devil (*Citheronia regalis*).
Small branches severed by a twig girdler (*Oncideres cingulata*) are
often encountered -- these wounds allow entry of a wilt fungus,
*Cephalosporium diospyri*, which kills many trees in the southeastern
US. An infected tree lives 1-2 years after the wilting appears. Diseased
trees should be burned and bruises on healthy trees should be covered
with pitch or wax to prevent entry by wind-borne spores.

####### Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture."

####### References

Anonymous. 1973. *Persimmon, Diospyros virginiana*. Morton Arbor. Quart.
9:14-15.

Coladonato, M. 1992. *Diospyros virginiana*. IN: W.C. Fischer
(compiler). *The fire effects information system* \[Data base\]. USDA,
Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Intermountain Fire
Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, Montana.
\<http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/\>

Crandall, B.S. & W.L. Baker 1950. *The wilt disease of American
persimmon caused by Cephalosporium diospyri.* Phytopath. 40:307-325.

Glasgow, L.L. 1977. *Common persimmon*. Pp. 103-104, IN: *Southern
fruit-producing woody plants used by wildlife*. USDA, Forest Service,
General Report SO-16. Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans,
Louisiana.

Halls, L.K. 1990. *Diospyros virginiana L. Persimmon*. Pp. 294-298, IN:
R.M. Burns and B.H. Honkala (tech. coords.). *Silvics of North America*.
*Volume 2*. *Hardwoods*. USDA, Forest Service Agric. Handbook 654,
Washington, D.C.
\<http://willow.ncfes.umn.edu/silvics_manual/Table_of_contents.htm\>

McDaniel, J.C. 1973. *Persimmon cultivars for northern areas.* Fruit
Var. J. 27(4):94-96.

Spongberg, S.A. 1977. *Ebenaceae hardy in temperate North America.* J.
Arnold Arb. 58:146-160.

Wood C.E. & R.B. Channell 1960. *The genera of the Ebenales in the
southeastern United States.* J. Arnold Arbor. 41:1-35.

####### Prepared By

*Guy Nesom*

Formerly BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

####### Species Coordinator

*Lincoln Moore*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Edited: 29nov00 jsp; 10jun03 ahv; 06jun06 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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