Diospyros kaki in China, Japan and Korea. In East Asia the main harvest time for "kaki" is in the months of October and November. The trees lose their leaves by harvest time. Occasionally, the brightly colored fruit is left unharvested on the tree as a decorative effect. In China, "kaki" has been cultivated since time immemorial. It is considered to have four virtues: Cultivation of this species at first spread through East Asia. Since the 19th century, "kaki" partially replaced date-plum ("Diospyros lotus", also known as Caucasian persimmon) in some countries in South Europe and West Asia, because "kaki" have bigger fruits
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