226 .SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



dates/'' though gradually at very advancing age at diminished 

 rates. Though from the sap sugar or palm wine can be 

 obtained, and from the leaves hats, mats, and similar articles 

 can be manufactured, we here would utilise this palm beyond 

 scenic garden ornamentation only for its fruits. It is in the 

 oases of our desert tracts, swept by burning winds, where the 

 date palm would afford in time to come a real boon, although 

 it might be grown also in the valleys of our mountains and in 

 any part of our lowlands. Several bunches of flowers are 

 formed in a season, each producing often as many as 200 dates. 

 In Egypt as many as 4 cwt. of dates have been harvested in 

 one season from a single date palm. Many varieties of Dates 

 exist, differing in shape, size, and colour of the fruit ; those of 

 Gomera are large and contain no seed. The unexpanded 

 flower bunches can be used for palm cabbage, the fibre of the 

 leaf stalks for cordage. The town Elche in Spain is surround- 

 ed by a planted forest of about 80,000 date palms, and the 

 sale of leaves for decorative purposes produces, irrespective of 

 the value of the date fruits, a considerable income to the town ; 

 and so it is at Alicante. As far north as the Gulf of Genoa 

 exists also a date forest. The ease with which this palm 

 grows from seeds affords facility in adapted climes to imitate 

 these examples, and we certainly ought to follow them in all 

 parts of Australia, and in similar climes. The best dates 

 are grown in oases, where fresh water gushes from the ground 

 in abundance and spreads over light soil of the desert with its 

 burning wind. The Zadie variety produces the heaviest crop, 

 averaging 300 Ibs. to the tree; superior varieties can only be 

 continued from offshoots of the root; these will commence 

 to bear in five years and be in full bearing in ten years ; 

 one male tree is considered sufficient for half a hundred 

 females. The pollen-dust is sparingly applied by artificial 

 means. The date palm will live in saltish soil, and the 

 water for its irrigation may be slightly brackish. (Surgeon- 

 Major Colvill.) Northern limit of date about 35 north 

 latitude. 



Phoenix paludosa, Roxburgh. 



India. A stout species, not very tall. Of value at least for 

 decorative culture. 



Phoenix pusilla, Gaertner. 



India and South China. A dwarf species, likely also to be 

 hardy. P. farimfera (Roxb.) appears to be identical. It is 

 adapted for sandy and otherwise dry and barren land, but 



