POLLINATION 107 



important thing is to keep it dry from the beginning. 

 For this reason the male flowers should be cut only 

 during the warmer part of the day, and dried very 

 carefully, otherwise the minute grains of pollen 

 will agglutinate into a mass of no potency. If pollin- 

 ation is performed in moist weather the same result 

 may take place on the tree; and if a heavy fog or rain 

 occurs after the female has been pollinated, it may 

 wash off all the pollen. In such cases the blossoms 

 should at once be repollinated, and usually the crop 

 can be saved. 



If the pollen is kept dry it preserves its value for 

 a long time, and in some date growing communities 

 it is the custom to save a small supply from each year 

 to the next a custom that may well be followed in 

 America, where females sometimes show surprising 

 precocity in bloom. A pollination made in 1912 at 

 the Mecca Experiment Station with pollen seven years 

 old, sent from the Tempe garden, was entirely suc- 

 cessful. The elder Michaux reports,* but apparently 

 not of his own knowledge, that pollen had preserved 

 its power during nineteen years, in Persia. It can 

 also be shipped easily from one region to another. 

 Busreh often supplies pollen to a large part of the 

 Persian gulf. 



In case of a shortage of pollen, that of almost any 

 other species of Phoenix, or even distantly related 

 genera, will give results. Phoenix canariensis, which 

 abounds in the southwestern United States, furnishes 

 an excellent pollen for fertilizing the date palm, and 

 with some varieties, such as Ghars, the fruit produced 

 is even better than when pollination is from a male of 



*Annales du Museum, Paris. Quoted in "Vegetable Substances 

 Used for the Food of Man," vol. II, p. 46. London, 1846. 



