Date Plum, Caucasian persimmon, Lilac persimmon • Hindi: Amlok Botanical name: Diospyros lotus

Common name: Date Plum, Caucasian persimmon, Lilac persimmon • Hindi: Amlok

Botanical name: Diospyros lotus   

Family: Ebenaceae (Ebony family)

Location-HP Chamba,(Sahoo)

DOC:-09/2021

Occurence:-500-2500meter

Flowering:-May-June

Synonyms: Diospyros calycina, Diospyros umlovok, Diospyros mediterranea

Date Plum is a deciduous tree with bark grayish black to grayish brown. Leaf-stalks are 0.7-1.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic to ovate-oblong, 5-13 x 2.5-6 cm, somewhat membranous, below drying green or glaucous and with dark veinlets, base blunt, broadly wedge-shaped, or nearly rounded, tip tapering to pointed, lateral veins 7-10 per side, netveined veinlets clearly defined, flat, and dark. Male flowers are borne 1-3 together; flower-stalks up to 6 mm; sepals 4 or 5; flowers reddish to pale yellow, urn-shaped, about 4 mm, petals 4; stamens 16. Female flowers are nearly stalkless, pale green to reddish; sepals 4; flowers urn-shaped, about 6 mm, petals 4 or rarely 5; staminodes 8; ovary 8-locular, hairless except for tip; styles 4. Fruiting sepals are 4, ovate, tip blunt. Berries are pale yellow, becoming bluish black with a glaucous bloom, nearly spherical to ellipsoid, 1-2 cm in diameter. Seeds are brown, compressed, about 10 x 6 mm in diameter. Date Plum is found in SW Asia, Western Himalaya, China to Korea.

From @ Gajendra Varma