STAMINATE FLOWER PRODUCTION ON SHOOTS OF FUYU AND JIRO PERSIMMON (DIOSPYROS-KAKI THUNB)

'Fuyu' and 'Jiro' Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) are norma lly pistillate constant, producing only female flowers. However, shoot s of individual trees of both cultivars were found bearing male flower s. When these shoots were top-worked on other stocks, the new shoots e merging from the scions yielded male flowers which produced viable pol len grains on an agar medium. There were no differences in starch gel electrophoretic patterns for glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), glucose ph osphate isomerase (GPI), malate dehydrogenase (MDH), and phosphoglucom utase (PGM) between the leaves on the shoots with male flowers and lea ves from the original source trees. The leaves, shoots, fruit and seed s derived from the top-grafted branches could not be morphologically d istinguished from the other original trees. These results indicate tha t the shoots with male flowers are morphologically and enzymatically i dentical to 'Fuyu' and 'Jiro', except that the bud sports are staminat e-sporadic.