132 FLORA OF THE 



sport in Persia and India. It is enough to have seen 

 two fighting rams butting each other, and to have read 

 of their feats, to realize what a wonderful animal the 

 ram is. 



Horns must certainly have had a great significance in 

 those days. In my opinion the horns — and one cannot 

 doubt they were meant for horns — shown on the sacred 

 trees were not imaginary and irrelevant decorative 

 features, put there simply to break the monotony of 

 the straight stem of a date tree — a monotony which 

 would appear to have been hateful to the artistic mind 

 from the beginning of time. 



I don't think that these horns were introduced by the 

 Assyrian artists for decorative effect alone ; no : they 

 would seem to have been things which in those days 

 must have been frequently seen tied on real date trees. 



If so, what could have been the meaning of horns 

 tied on date trees ? 



The date tree, as is well known, has female flowers 

 on one tree, and male flowers on another, which in 

 itself might have appeared to the Assyrians a fact 

 sufficiently wonderful. In those days, the date palm 

 must have been largely grown from seeds. We know 

 from the records of Herodotus, that the Assyrians were 

 acquainted with cross fertilization of the date trees 

 (hybridization). They may not at all have fertilized the 

 female flower of one tree with the pollen of another 



