Diospyros texana Diospyros texana Diospyros texana is a species of persimmon that is native to central, south and west Texas and southwest Oklahoma in the United States, and eastern Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico. Common names include Texas persimmon, Mexican persimmon and the more ambiguous "black persimmon". It is known in Spanish as chapote, chapote manzano, or chapote prieto, all of which are derived from the Nahuatl word "tzapotl". That word also refers to several other fruit-bearing trees. "Diospyros texana" is a multi-trunked small tree or large shrub with a lifespan of 30 to 50 years. It usually
Diospyros "Zeus's wheat" but more generally intends "divine food" or "divine fruit". Muddled translations sometimes give rise to curious and inappropriate interpretations such as "God's pear" and "Jove's fire". The genus is a large one and the number of species has been estimated variously, depending on the date of the source. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, list has over 1000 entries, including synonyms and items of low confidence. Over 700 species are marked as being assigned with high confidence. The leaves of "Diospyros blancoi" have been shown to contain isoarborinol methyl ether (also called cylindrin) and fatty esters of α- and