THE DATE. 107 



Palms were introduced into England as green-house 

 plants about 150 years ago, and the noted Miller, of 

 Chelsea, is said to have been the first who cultivated them. 

 The attention they have received of late years has resulted 

 in great success, and the splendid specimens shown at 

 Kew form one of the most striking attractions of those 

 truly royal gardens. Miller says that they grow so slowly, 

 even in their native climate, as often to make but 2 ft. in 

 10 years, and mentions some at Chelsea which had been 

 planted 20 years before he wrote, and then had trunks 

 but 2 ft. high, though the leaves were 7 ft. long, and they 

 had even borne fruit. In consequence of their utmost 

 circumference being soon attained and farther expansion 

 denied, palms are prevented from attaining any very great 

 age. At the end of about 70 years the slender cylindrical 

 column of the Phoenix ceases to aspire any higher ; for 

 another 70 years it continues in perfection, then begins to 

 decline, and mostly falls by the end of the second century. 

 Yet utter extinction does not await the aged tree, for its 

 grave becomes the cradle of its successor, and from the 

 withered stump springs forth at least one shoot, which in 

 time fills the place of the defunct parent, and " keeps its 

 memory green." It is to this peculiarity that the tree 

 owes its name of " Phoenix," and it is said to have given 

 origin to the fable of that bird of the sun whose dying 

 " resurgam" chant roused a new life out of its own ashes. 

 The Phoenicians, too, it is considered by some, derived 

 their name from the number of palm-trees growing in their 

 country. The specific name dactyliferct, from the Greek 

 dactylus, a finger, is due to a fancied resemblance between 

 the clusters of fruit and the human fingers. The Arabic 

 name, tamr*, signifies straight or upright, and furnishes 

 also the etymology of Tadmor, that palm-girdled city of 

 the desert founded by Solomon, the title of which was 

 translated in later days into Palmyra. 



The curious fact of the trees being divided by Nature 

 into the fruit-bearing and the pollen- supplying kind was 



* This word supplies, too, the title of the tamarind, called in the East the 

 tamr hindee, or Indian date. 



