400 



GENERAL MORPHOLOGY OF PLANTS 



in northern Africa, and is being introduced in the desert and 

 alkaline regions of California and Arizona, where it promises to 

 succeed.* This work is being done by the Department of Seed 

 and Plant Introduction of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, which is already producing very important results for 

 agriculture and horticulture in this country, especially in the 



Fig. 388. 



Fruiting date palms at Old Biskra, Algeria, with fig trees growing underneath. From 

 Bureau Plant Industry. 



arid and semi-arid regions. Because it is adapted to grow in hot 

 dry regions, it becomes a valuable crop for these regions. It has 

 a short stout trunk covered with the old leaf bases, while at the 

 top are long feathery leaves. Single trees sometimes produce 

 three hundred to five hundred pounds of dates in a season. The 

 flowers are in dense branched panicles, and the weight of the 

 numerous dates later bends the flower stalk downward, forming 

 a graceful cluster. In some countries, especially along the Nile 

 in Egypt, the trees are all numbered by the Government, and 



* See " Our Plant Immigrants," in National Geographic Magazine for 

 April, 1906. 





