18 BULLETIN 271, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



throughout, with a thickness of 0.017 to 0.020 of an inch. The pulvini are from medium 

 to heavy, a few being slenderly caudate and coalescent. 



The diversity of the angles of the pinnae gives a rather ragged appearance to the 

 blade, and the position of the antrorse class keeps the valley of the blade rather narrow 

 clear to the apex, a somewhat unusual feature. The analysis shows unusually low 

 numbers of introrse pinnae and a corresponding high proportion of the paired antrorse- 

 retrorse groups. 



The fruit stalks are of medium weight, about 36 to 40 inches to the fruiting head, 

 which is 12 to 15 inches. The strands, or "shamrokh," 18 to 22 inches long, are set 

 with fruit on the outer three-fifths of their length. 



The oval fruits are 1£ to 1J inches long and about three-fourths of an inch broad, 

 the broadest portion being a little beyond the middle. 



The color is orange yellow, curing to a brownish black, the packed color being an 

 oily black for which there is no equivalent in the color scheme. The skin is thin 

 and the flesh sticky and of a color difficult to place in the scale, a "maroon purple"' 

 (R. XXVI) 1 much deepened being the nearest equivalent. The flavor is rich and 

 very sweet, but rather cloying. 



The seeds are about three-fourths of an inch long, five-sixteenths of an inch broad, 

 nearly oblong, with rounded ends, the apex obtusely pointed. They are nearly cylin- 

 drical, smooth dorsally, the germ pore placed a little nearer the apex, the ventral 

 surface somewhat corrugated, the ventral furrow narrow and shallow. Their color 

 is very close to "auburn" (R. II). 



This variety is gathered before it is fully ripe and dried somewhat in the sun, spread 

 on palm leaves in drying yards. The dates are then "tramped into huge baskets of 

 braided date leaves, holding from an ardeb of 320 pounds to 600 or even 752 pounds. 

 While this is a date of rather valuable qualities, certainly much superior to the Amri 

 in flavor, it is handled in such a careless and filthy manner, which filthiness is en- 

 hanced by the stickiness of the fruit, that the whole product is a dirty, sticky mass 

 that finds a sale among the poorer people at prices considerably below those commanded 

 for the Siwah of the same district. 



The chief area of the production of this variety is in Gizeh Province, in the dis- 

 tricts around Bedrashen, Hauamdiyeh, and Abu Nemrus. There is also a consid- 

 erable planting about Manshia, north of the Gizeh Pyramids. 



(Notes taken at Salihieh and Birket el Hadji.) 



Trees of the Amri variety (PI. Ill, fig. 1) have unusually airy and feathery tops, an 

 appearance due both to the slender, flexible rib and to the narrow pinnae. 



The leaves are 11 to 12 feet long, the rib light throughout, narrow and strongly 

 rounded at the base and tapering to a slender apex, which becomes Very thin laterally. 

 The light ribs are counted of small value in the manufacture of crates and other mate- 

 rial of; that character. 



The spine area is only about 15 inches, the spines from 2 to 6 or 7 inches long, slen- 

 der and acute. They pass into soft ribbon pinnae varying from 10 to 16 or 18 inches 

 in length. The normal pinnae become 22 to 23 inches long at 4 or 5 feet from the 

 base and gradually diminish to 10 or 12 inches at the apex. 



Through the middle of the blade the pinnae reach a breadth of only seven-eighths 

 of an inch or 1 inch,tfwhile the upper and lower ones are from one-half to three-fourths 

 of an inch broad. Several of the lower pinnae are somewhat "necked," as is com- 

 mon in Hayany, and the apical pinnae are noticeably winged. 



1 The color references in this and the following descriptions are from Ridgway's "Color Standards and 

 Nomenclature," Washington, D. C.,-1912. Published by the author. The color cited, "maroon purple," 

 is quoted from Ridgway's plate 26, being indicated by "R. XXVI." 



