annette lim writes:

> A friend of mine lives in the South San Jose area (zone 15)
> and is interested in finding a source for a fruiting persimmon
> tree for the garden.  I don't know the name of the variety exactly,
> but I usually find the fruit sold in the Asian grocery markets.
> The persimmons are hard and shaped like squat tomatoes.  The fruit
> is often eaten like apples.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

then your friend wants (some cultivar of) the asian persimmon (kaki), 
as opposed to the american persimmon

a commercial supplier of many kaki cultivars (grafted onto american 
rootstock i believe) is:

   chestnut hill nursery (florida) 800-669-2067

btw, this is the outfit that supplies everybody else with dunstan
chestnuts -- they sell some other stuff too, but kakis and chestnuts 
are their main products

one little tiny caution -- watch out for nematodes from those sandy
southeastern soils

--
mike langston <langston@cs.utk.edu>
department of computer science, university of tennessee