The Editor: Origin of the Date Palm 



501 



THE RANGE OF THE DATE PALM 



The present range of the date palm is in the territory circumscribed by the 

 heavy Hne. No account is made of America, since the palm has only 

 been introduced here within a relatively recent time. The stars 

 show localities from which fossil remains have been taken, indicating 

 that in the prehistoric period the palm was much more widely spread 

 than at present. After Berry. (Fig. 7.) 



Phoenix, at least two of which are 

 coastal types, indicates that the geo- 

 logic ancestors were not necessarily 

 desert types, but inhabitants of coast 

 and stream-banks where the water- 

 table approached near enough to the 

 surface to become available for their 

 root system. When corroborated by 

 the associated forms of vegetation they 

 may indicate hot climates with a 

 scanty rainfall as they probably do in 

 east Texas and it seems certain that 

 temperatures could not have gone below 

 18° C. without being fatal. 



" Phoenicites occidentalis comes from a 

 ■cut on the International and Great 

 Northern Railroad in southern Trinity 

 •county, where a spur to the govern- 

 ment lock leaves the main line. The 

 outcrop is referred to the Catahoula 

 formation, which in this region is of 

 late Eocene or early Oligocene age." 



MIGRATION OF THE PALM. 



Why the date palm became extinct 

 in America, and how it spread to the 

 Eastern Hemisphere, one can hardly 

 guess, but as such a history is matched 

 by that of ntimerous other plants and 

 animals known to us, there is nothing 



improbable in it. As far as our his- 

 torical record goes — and for the date 

 palm it goes back very close to the be- 

 ginning of history — the palm has been 

 associated with the Semitic peoples, so 

 that it has come to be considered an 

 integral part of their culture. 



Far earlier than any of our written 

 records we must picture the date palm 

 as established in the Persian Gulf and 

 Babylonia, and forming an important 

 part of the food of the inhabitants of 

 that region. Its fruit in that period 

 doubtless consisted of much seed and 

 little flesh, like the Texas fossil and like 

 the fruit of Phoenix sylvestris and many 

 seedling dates today, for in that early 

 period we can hardly suppose that the 

 propagation of superior varieties by 

 offshoots was practiced. By the time, 

 however, of the famous Hammurabi 

 (c. 1958-1916 B. C.) there is evidence 

 that propagation by offshoots was the 

 customary means of starting a planta- 

 tion. The sixtieth paragraph of that 

 monarch's code of laws provides that, 

 if a man lease his garden to another to 

 plant as an orchard, he shall let it 

 without rent for four years, but in the 

 fifth year the owner shall have half 



