Diospyros virginiana
Common name: 
Common Persimmon
American Persimmon
Pronunciation: 
di-OS-pi-ros ver-jin-i-A-na
Family: 
Ebenaceae
Genus: 
Diospyros
Type: 
Broadleaf
Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon: 
No
  • Deciduous tree with a slender, oval-rounded crown, 35-60 ft (11-18 m) high and 20-35 ft (6-11 m) wide, suckers, bark thick, hard, in distinctive squares.  Leaves alternate, simple, 5-13 cm long and 2-5 cm wide, oval to elliptic, rounded at base, entire or irregularly serrate, glossy dark green above and paler below.  Dioecious --male and female trees --- although both sexes sometimes present on the same tree, white to greenish-white, blueberry-shaped flower, fragrant.   Fruit (berry) globose, 2.5-5 cm, blue-green when young and yellowish to pale orange at maturity, subtended by 4 persistent calyx lobes, edible.
  • Sun
  • Hardy to USDA Zone 4      Native range from Connecticut to Florida and west to Kansas and Texas.  Several cultivars.
     
  • Diospyros: from the Greek dios, divine, and pyros, wheat, referring to the edible fruit.    virginiana: of Virginia
  • Salem, Oregon: east of the Bush House in Bush Pasture Park, male tree.
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  • expanding leaves

    expanding leaves

  • plant habit

    plant habit

  • young leaves

    young leaves

  • flower buds and flowers

    flower buds and flowers

  • leaves and fruit, summer

    leaves and fruit, summer

  • shoot with developing fruit

    shoot with developing fruit

  • fruit

    fruit

  • ripe fruit, fall

    ripe fruit, fall

  • leaves, fall

    leaves, fall

  • fruit, late fall

    fruit, late fall

  • plant habit, winter

    plant habit, winter

  • trunk, bark

    trunk, bark

  • winter twigs, buds

    winter twigs, buds