It seldom exceeds thirty feet in height, and a diameter of six or eight inches, though it generally stops short at half this elevation. The trunk is covered with a silver-gray bark, which is smooth and finely polished. The leaves are alternate, five or six inches in length, and of an elongated form, widening from the base to the summit. They are of a fine texture, and the superior surface is smooth and brilliant. The flowers are pendent, and of a purple hue. When the fruit is ripe, which takes place towards the beginning of August, it is about three inches long, one and a half thick, of a yellowish color, and of an oval form, irregular and swelling into inequalities. Its pulp is soft, and of an insipid taste, and it contains several large, triangular stones. _Persimon._――The banks of the river Connecticut, below the forty-second degree of latitude, may be uniformly considered as the northern limit of this tree; but it is rendered rare in these parts by the severity of the winter, while in New Jersey it is common, and still more so in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the southern states; it abounds, also, in the western forests. The persimon varies surprisingly in size in different soils and climates. In New Jersey it is not more than half as large as in the more southern states, where, in favorable situations, it is sometimes sixty feet in height, and eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. The trunk of a full-grown tree is covered with a deeply-furrowed blackish bark, from which a greenish gum exudes, without taste or smell. The leaves are from four to six inches in length, oblong, entire, of a fine green above; in autumn they are often variegated with black spots. This tree belongs to the class of vegetables whose sexes are confined to different stocks. Both the barren and fertile flowers are greenish and not strikingly apparent. They put forth in June or July. The ripe fruit is about as large as the thumb, of a reddish complexion, round, fleshy, and furnished with six or eight semi-oval stones, slightly swollen at the sides, and of a dark purple color. It is not eatable till it has been touched with frost, by which the skin is shrivelled, and the pulp, which before was hard and extremely harsh to the taste, is softened and rendered palatable. The fruit is so abundant in the southern states, that a tree often yields several bushels. In the south, it adheres to the branches long after the shedding of the leaf, and when it falls, it is eagerly devoured by wild and domestic animals.