'Sharon fruit' (named after the Sharon plain in Israel) is the marketing name for the Israeli-bred cultivar 'Triumph'. When ripe, this fruit comprises thick, pulpy jelly encased in a waxy thin-skinned shell. Persimmons like 'Hachiya' must be completely ripened before consumption. The tannin levels are reduced as the fruit matures. The fruit has a high tannincontent, which makes the unripe fruit astringent and bitter. The Japanese cultivar 'Hachiya' is widely grown. It is edible in its crisp, firm state but has its best flavor when allowed to rest and soften slightly after harvest. Cultivation of the fruit extended first to other parts of east Asia, India and Nepal and was later introduced to California and southern Europe in the 1800s and to Brazil in the 1890s, and numerous cultivars have been selected. Its fruits are sweet and slightly tangy with a soft to occasionally fibrous texture. It is the most widely cultivated species. It is deciduous, with broad, stiff leaves, and is known as the shizi (柿子 in Chinese), and also as the Japanese Persimmon or kaki (柿) in Japanese. While there are many species of Diospyros that bear fruit inedible to humans, the following are those that bear edible fruit: Diospyros kaki (Asian persimmon, Japanese persimmon)Īsian or Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is native to Japan, China, Korea, Burma and Nepal. Like the tomato, persimmons are not typically considered to be berries, but in terms of botanical morphology, the fruit is in fact a berry. The ripe fruit has a high glucose content and is sweet in taste. The calyx generally remains attached to the fruit after harvesting, but becomes easy to remove once the fruit is ripe. The flesh is astringent until fully ripe and is yellow, orange, or dark-brown in color. They similarly vary in size from 1.5 to 9 cm in diameter, and in shape the varieties may be spherical, acorn-, or pumpkin-shaped. In color, the ripe fruit of the cultivated strains range from glossy light yellow-orange to dark red-orange depending on the species and variety. Persimmon fruit matures late in the fall and can stay on the tree until winter. 'Perfect' flowers are a cross between the two and contain both male and female reproductive organs.

They have a large calyx, a 4-parted, yellow corolla, 8 undeveloped stamens, and a rounded ovary bearing the style and stigma. Female flowers are creamy-white and appear solitary. They have a 4-parted calyx, a corolla, and 24 stamens in 2 rows. Male flowers are pink and appear in groups of 3. Some trees have both male and female flowers and in rare cases also bear the 'perfect' flower. Persimmon trees are typically dioecious, meaning male and female flowers are produced on separate trees. In the fall, they turn to yellow, orange, or red. The leaves are deciduous and bluish-green in color. They are leathery and glossy on the upper surface, brown and silky underneath. The leaves alternate, are oblong with brown-hairy petioles that are 2 centimetres, 0.8 in in length. It stands erect, but sometimes can be crooked or have a willowy appearance. Typically the tree reaches 4.5 to 18 metres (15 to 59 ft) in height and is round-topped. The tree Diospyros kaki is the most widely cultivated species of persimmon. The word persimmon itself is derived from putchamin, pasiminan, or pessamin, from Powhatan, an Algonquian language of the eastern United States, meaning 'a dry fruit'. The dio-, as shown by the short vowel 'i' has nothing to do with 'divine' (δῑoς), dio- being an affix attached to plant names, and in classical Greek the compound referred to 'the fruit of the nettle tree.'' The Modern Greek name for the fruit is λωτός lotos, which leads modern Greeks to the assumption that this is the lotus referred to in Homer's Odyssey. A popular etymology construed this as 'divine fruit', or as meaning 'wheat of Zeus' or 'God's pear' and 'Jove's fire'. The word Diospyros comes from the ancient Greek words 'dios' ( δῐος) and 'pyron' ( πῡρον). Diospyros is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-persimmon species of the genus are grown for ebony timber. The persimmon /pərˈsɪmən/ (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 Oriental or Japanese persimmon, Diospyros kaki. Diospryos Kaki (Aisian Persimmon, Japanese persimmon).

Persimmon origin