SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 21 



one received without a label were recognized by the writer as identical, and 

 careful notes were made of the leaf and fruit characters, all of which were 

 strongly marked and characteristic. 



As no such name occurred in any of the published lists of Egj'ptian dates, 

 there was naturally considerable interest in the true identity of so conspicuous 

 a variety. Consequently, on arriving in Egypt one of the writer's earliest 

 excursions from Cairo was to the native village of Bedrashen (variant spell- 

 ings, " Badrashen " and " Badreshein "), a prominent date growing and ship- 

 ping point on the west bank of the Nile, about 10 miles above Cairo. It is the 

 stopping point for excursionists to the historic site of ancient Memphis and 

 Sakkara, and perhaps no spot in the Nile Valley has witnessed more of the 

 glory of ancient Egypt than this. At the present time there are no more mag- 

 nificent date groves to be found in Egypt than those that surround this town, 

 Hauamdiyeh, and a number of other villages between Bedrashen and Gizeh. 

 The soil is a rich sandy loam, capable of producing heavy crops of general 

 produce, and maize is frequently grown beneath the date trees. Going out 

 among the date growers and inquiring for a variety named Oga de Bedrashen, 

 brought the unvarying response that they knew of no such variety. They had 

 only Siwah and Amhat, a few Hamrawi, and some " balady," their name for 

 dates of local origin, or seedlings. On looking over their garden the young 

 trees of the Siwah had a familiar appearance, and a later visit gave time for 

 the study of the leaf and fruiting characters in detail. Only one conclusion 

 could be reached — the variety we had received under the name of " Oga de 

 Bedrichen " is no other than the Siwah, the leading variety of the Bedrashen 

 and Hauamdiyeh district and the chief packing date of Upper Egypt. The 

 mudirieh of Gizeh has 435,000 taxed date trees, and at a rough estimate 100,000 

 of them are of the Siwah variety. With the exception of a few trees that are 

 being planted in Fayum, there seems to be little known of this variety out- 

 side of Gizeh Province, and within that it is chiefly confined to the section 

 south of Gizeh station and to a district on the west side of the valley and north 

 of the pyramids. Of its origin or the date of its introduction into this dis- 

 trict, nothing could be learned. The name at once suggested an introduction 

 from the oasis of that name. But unlike Dongola Province, where they pre- 

 serve a distinct tradition of having obtained their date varieties from the 

 Sukkot country, these people have no record of the introduction of the Siwah 

 into their country, and they insist that it originated there. 



The situation is further complicated by the fact that there is an exceedingly 

 close resemblance between the Siwah and the Saidy, the great export date com- 

 mon to the entire chain of oases of western Egypt, from Siwah at the north- 

 west, to Baharieh, Farafreh, Dakhleh, and around to Khargeh. A most careful 

 comparison of all the characters of trunk, leaf, and fruiting stalk fails to show 

 points of constant difference between these varieties, unless it is in the thick- 

 ness of the fruiting stalk, which, on the whole, seems to be lighter in weight 

 in the Saidy than in the Siwah. How growing in the same soil conditions would 

 affect them in this respect can only be determined by trial. The fruits are so 

 closely related in character that the oasis Saidy variety, as packed and brought 

 to the Nile Valley, shows no constant differences that will distinguish them 

 from the Siwah of Bedrashen, though individual lots may vary considerably. 

 The question again arises of how the varieties would behave if grown side by 

 side in identical soil conditions. The rich soil of Bedrashen and Hauamdiyeh 

 might produce somewhat different results in a variety than would be produced 

 in the rather poor, sandy soils of Khargeh and Dakhleh Oases, in which the 

 writer studied the Saidy. Trees of " Saydy," S. P. I. No. 11485, fruited in 1912 

 in a very sandy soil at the Mecca Date Garden in California, and were con- 

 sidered by Bruce Drummond, in charge of the Indio and Mecca Date Gardens, 

 to be identical with the " Oga de Bedrichen " (Siwah) of Tempe. The writer 

 at first concurred in this opinion, but with a more detailed examination of the 

 Mecca plants concluded that they were distinct. After seeing both varieties, 

 as grown in Egypt, to still regard them as distinct, with so many points of iden- 

 tity, can only be accounted for in one way. The Siwah, from its narrow dis- 

 semination, is possibly the younger variety and a seedling springing from the 

 Saidy, the fruit of which has found its market in the valley for many years. 

 Analogy for an even closer resemblance of a seedling to its parent is found in 

 Ja/nes Reed's " Pioneer " seedling of the Deglet Noor, produced at Thermal, 

 Calif. 



There is another point that makes it of importance that the Saidy and the 

 Siwah should be tested in identical situations. The ripening of the two varie- 



