Ebenaceae

Tags: garden | plant

 

The family includes trees or erect shrubs, black to dark brown hard wood. The leaves are simple, mostly alternate with an entire margin and leathery. The flowers are dioecious, cymes male flowers and axillary female flowers. Corolla is campanulate or urceolate, 4-5 lobed, convolute. Calyx is 3-6-lobed, often becoming enlarged after flower withered, survives on fruit. Stamens are 1-4 X as many as corolla lobes. The fruit is fleshy berry.Some of Diospyros plants were called Ebony which is heavy, black, high density, fine-grained heartwood. It is valuable as a handcraft material. The persimmon (Diospyros discolour) and Diospyros ferrea are part of Ebony family. Ebenaceae native to the tropics and subtropics. The fruit – kaki Persimmons, native to mainland China, cultivation history back to few millenarian years ago with several species. The fruit are eaten fresh or dried; the serum can painted on fish net and umbrella which increase the usage period. Others like Diospyros ferrea, Disopyros vaccinioides are used in ornamental horticulture and as a source of garden and patio plants.

 

Euonymus tashiroi Maxim.

Medinilla formosana Hayata

Diospyros philippinensis

 (Desv.) Gurke

   

 

Taipei Botanical Garden (TPBG) , Taiwan Forestry Research Institute.