Dr. Singh-- I could be wrong, but I think that these are both D. kaki. There are cultivars that ripen sweet on the tree and others that are astringent until fully ripe, usually off-tree.
http://crfg.org/pubs/ff/persimmon.html Also, the foliage of your tree does not look correct for D. virginiana, which usually has rather glaucous foliage. (See attached). I don't know the size of the tree pictured, but D. virginiana is a much larger tree than D. kaki, easily reaching over 40'/13m in its native habitat. D. virginiana: https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~jhayden/landscape_plants/summer_woody_plants/diospyros_virginiana_4760-AN_01s.JPG http://biology.missouristate.edu/Herbarium/Plants%20of%20the%20Interior%20Highlands/Flowers/Diospyros%20virginiana%20-%20N1.JPG Regards-- Ken Greby ________________________________ From: Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, November 1, 2009 3:44:28 AM Subject: [indiantreepix:21965] Diospyros virginiana & D. kaki In our childhood we used to pluck fruits (locally called Amlok in Kashmir; although Amlok is more correctly applied to D. lotus, Dateplum persimon with fruits smaller than 2 cm) which would be palatable and sweet only if ripe orange fruits were eaten. If you do the mistake of eating slightly unripe greenish-yellow fruits it would leave you a very bad taste and irritation for many hours. I knew this plant as persimon, a species of Diospyros. When I mentioned about this to my colleague, who had visited Manali earlier, he mentioned that he had eaten unripe fruits without any problem. Fortunately we found two types of fruits in a fruit shop. The first I identified as D. virginiana (unripe fruits are unpalatable, and not sold) and another D. kaki (even unripe fruits are palatable). Former is Common persimon and latter (Japanese persimon, Kaki persimon; HindI; halwa tendu). Local Manali people call both types of fruits as Japanese fruit. I am uploading both. Comments are solicited. Dr. Gurcharan Singh Associate Professor SGTB Khalsa College University of Delhi, Delhi India http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "indiantreepix" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
