Abstract
A NEW FRUIT.—Mr. Hollister has introduced from Japan to San Francisco a fruit, which is said in its native country to have as many varieties as are grown in this country of our apple, and the sweetness of the fruit is more or less retained by all of them. It is known as the Japanese Persimmon and, according to Mr. Hollister, is the most beautiful of all the fruits he had ever seen and the most delicious to the taste—four of the fruits which ripened with him weighed three quarters of a pound each, they were of a rich yellow colour, and looked like balls of wax; these were pronounced equal to a good pear or peach. The tree is a highly ornamental one, a prolific bearer, and as hardy as a pear. Its fruit season is from October to March. It seems quite adapted to the soil and climate of California. The grafted trees bear in four years. The seedlings require double that time, and are not reliable (Proceedings, Acad. of Science, California, in American Naturalist for March, 1878). This is the well-known and beautiful fruit of Diospyros kaki, Linn., fil., a near ally of the Persimmon of the Southern United States of America. Mr. Hiern tells us in his Monograph of the Ebenaceæ that the Chinese preserve this fruit with sugar, and that it has for a long time been in cultivation with them and the Japanese. The fruit has a thin skin, with a sweet orange-scarlet coloured flesh, with six or eight dark smooth seeds. It was beautifully figured in the Gardeners' Chronicle for 1872.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Biological Notes . Nature 17, 508–509 (1878). https://doi.org/10.1038/017508b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/017508b0