Persimmon Persimmon The persimmon (sometimes spelled persimon) is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus "Diospyros". The most widely cultivated of these is the Asian or Japanese persimmon, "Diospyros kaki". "Diospyros" is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-persimmon species of the genus are grown for ebony timber. The word "Diospyros" comes from the ancient Greek words "dios" ("δῐος") and "pyron" ("πῡρον"). A popular etymology construed this as "divine fruit", or as meaning "wheat of Zeus" or "God's pear" and "Jove's fire". The dio-, as shown by the short vowel 'i' has nothing
Diospyros candolleana Diospyros candolleana Diospyros candolleana, is a tree in the Ebony family, endemic to the Western Ghats of India and Sri Lanka. The trees are usually 20m tall, and found as subcanopy trees in wet evergreen forests up to 90m. The bark of "D. candolleana" is smooth, dark, and blaze-reddish in color. Branchlets are terete and show adpressed hairs when young. Leaves are simple, alternate, distichous; petioles are 0.6-1.1 cm long and canaliculate. Leaves are hairy when young, and glabrous when mature. Lamina is about 6-18 x 3.5-7.5 cm in length, shape is oblong to elliptic-oblong. Flowers are unisexual and dioecious.