SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT, 17 



Zervudachi, mistaking this local description for the real name of 

 the variety, shipped Hayany offshoots to Mr. Fairchild under the 

 name of " Birket el Haggi," and it was not until the writer's visit to 

 Cairo in September, 1913, that this confusion was straightened out^ 

 though the Hayany is by far the most abundant date m the delta 

 region of Egypt. 



The identity of the "Wahi" with the Saidy was further con- 

 firmed in the following November, when the writer visited Fayum in 

 company with T. W. Brown, horticultural director of the Egyptian 

 Ministry of Agriculture. At Abshawa, or Ebchawai, a village in 

 western Fayum, a Bedouin trader was found just in from the desert 

 with a small camel train loaded with dates which he called "Wahi." 

 (PL V, Fig. 2). At first he claimed that he had come from the 

 Siwa Oasis, though everj^ one in the village knew that he had never 

 been there, but under the cross-questioning of the omda, or village 

 headman, admitted that he had bought his dates in Baharia Oasis, 

 6 days' journey from Fayum. A bag of his dates was purchased, and 

 examination showed them to be identical with the Saidy dates seen 

 in Dakhla. These dates were shipped to Mr. Fairchild at Washing- 

 ton, who positively identified them with the " Wahi " dates he had 

 seen in Fayum 12 years earlier. 



Thus the identity of the "Wahi" and Saidy was established. It 

 may be interesting at this point to compare the description of the 

 Saidy date of the oasis and the " Sewi " dates of Gizeh, as prepared 

 by the writer from notes made in the gardens in the autumn of 1913 

 and published in 1915 in Department Bulletin No. 271 {22).^^ 



SAIDY. 



(Saidi, Wahi.) 



Trees with heavy trunks and stiffly spreading leaves 10 to 14 feet long, the 

 heavy ribs with very broad bases.^ There is a space of clear petiole of 12 to 15 

 inches below the first spines. The rib is strongly rounded dorsally and tapers 

 but slowly, its outcurves being stiff rather than graceful. 



The spine area is from 2J to 3J feet, the spines of medium weight or quite 

 heavy, placed singly and rather scattered, from 2 inches long below to 7 or 8 

 inches in the upper area, and passing into a stiff ribbon pinnae or spike pinnae 

 20 to 24 inches long and one-half to three-fourths of an inch wide. The normal 

 pinnae following these at 4 to 5 feet are 20 to 24 inches long and li to If 

 inches wide, but dropping steadily in length to 12 to 14 inches near the apex. 

 Their greatest width of li to If inches is reached at about three-fourths of 

 the blade length from the base. The pulvini are unusually heavy, deeply 

 cream colored, or slightly brownish in exposed places. The pinnae are rather 

 coarse and harsh, 0.018 to 0,019 of an inch or sometimes 0.025 of an inch thick 

 and conspicuously bluish green with a heavy waxy bloom. This bluish green 

 color is very noticeable when the leaves are seen in a mass. 



The 4-ranked arrangement of the pinnae is conspicuous, and the narrow axial 

 angles and strong angles with the blade plane formed by the lower antrorse 

 pinnae give the leaf a bristling and formidable appearance. The valley is 

 close and narrow nearly to the apex of the blade. The pinnae groups are of 

 the normal types till quite near the apex, and the paired groups of the antrorse- 

 retrorse type are largely in the majority. 



The orange-yellow fruit stalks are strikingly long, of medium weight, or 

 rather heavy in some cases. 



" Since this bulletin is out of print, it seems desirable to quote from it at length those 

 parts which bear upon the identity of the dates which have gone under the names " Wahl," 

 " Oga de Bedrichen," and " Sewi." 



^ Notes in parenthesis following color terms in this and following page*: refer to plate 

 numbers in Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, Robert Ridgway, Washington, 1912. 



8965—23 3 



