DATE PALM AND CHAM.EROPS. 



5 



in the East by the cultivator to hold his supply of 

 pollen-bearing inflorescences when he climbs the fruit- 

 bearing palms to fertilize them. Thus the winged 

 figure would be a genius of agriculture (Fig. 3). 



The Date Palm will reach water if there be any 

 within reach. Dr. Bennet showed me in his garden 

 near Mentone a 

 row of palms one 

 of which was twice 

 as big as any other. 

 Yet they were all 

 of the same age, 

 and had received 

 equal attention 

 from the gardener. 

 But the roots of 

 this particular tree 

 had found, or 

 made, a leakage in 

 a water-pipe. 



Like the great 

 majority of Palms, the Date tree is unbranched. 

 It grows only by a terminal bud ; if this is 

 destroyed, the tree dies, for it has no power to 

 throw out lateral shoots as a Dragon tree will do. 

 Xenophon notices this fact in his Anabasis. It follows 

 also that if the trunk of a palm is badly injured, there 

 is no saving the plant ; whereas many exogenous trees 

 would branch out below the injured part. I have seen 

 a fine specimen so weakened by the attacks of some 

 wood-boring larva, probably that of the Goat-moth 

 (Cossus), that it was brought down by a gale of wind. 

 In the case of another palm which became unhealthy 



Fig. 3. GENIUS OF AGRICULTURE FERTILIZING 

 A DATE PALM. 



