PERSIMMON Seeds | Diospyros kaki

Persimmon is an often multi-stemmed, slow-growing, deciduous tree with a fairly open, round crown. The bole is short and crooked. The tree is widely cultivated, especially in Japan and China, for its edible fruit. A handsome, ornamental tree with drooping leaves and branches that give it a languid, rather tropical appearance, it is often grown in gardens.

Fruit can be eaten raw or cooked. The fruit has an exquisitely rich flavour when it is very soft and fully ripe (almost at the point of going bad), but the fruit of many other cultivars is very harsh and astringent before then. In Australia the fruit needs to be harvested whilst it is still very hard. This is done very late in the season, it is then stored in a cool but frost-free place until very soft and fully ripe. The fruit can also be used in pies, cakes, bread and desserts. It contains 25% sugars. The fruit can also be dried for later use. The fruit is about 7.5cm in diameter. The peel of the fruit can be powdered and used as a sweetener. The leaves are used to improve the flavour of pickled radishes. The roasted seeds are a coffee substitute.

The stem bark is astringent and styptic. The fruit is said to have different properties depending on its stage of ripeness, though it is generally anti tussive, astringent, laxative, nutritive and stomachic. The fresh fully ripe fruit is used raw in the treatment of constipation and haemorrhoids and when cooked is used to treat diarrhoea.

The dried ripe fruit is used in the treatment of bronchial complaints, whilst when ground into a powder it is used to treat dry coughs. Juice from the unripe fruit is used in the treatment of hypertension. The fruits, picked green and ripened in containers with the leaves, become very sweet and are considered to be antifebrile, antivinous and demulcent.

The fruits are also peeled and then exposed to sunlight by day and dew by night. They become encrusted with a white powder and are then considered to be anthelmintic, antihaemorrhagic, antivinous, expectorant, febrifuge and restorative. The peduncle is used to treat coughs and hiccups. A decoction of the calyx and fruit stem is sometimes taken to relieve hiccups, coughs and laboured respiration

Apart from tannins, triterpenoid compounds such as α-amyrin, uvaol, ursolic acid, 19α-hydroxy ursolic acid and 19 α,24-dihydroxy ursolic acid can be isolated from the leaves  The high content of the carotenoids beta-cryptoxanthin, beta-carotene, and zeaxanthin, along with some lutein and alpha-carotene makes the kaki fruit nutritionally valuable.