164 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 322. 



Plant Notes. 

 The Date Palm. 



THE Date Palm, like the Cocoanut, must find a place 

 with the half-dozen trees which are of most value 

 to the human race. It is the type of Phoenix, a small 

 genus of northern Africa, southeastern Africa and tropical 

 Asia. The flower-spikes of all the plants of this genus grow 

 from among the long pinnate leaves and bear unisexual 

 flowers, the two sexes being produced on different indi- 

 viduals. The flowers have a cup-shaped, three-toothed 

 calyx, a corolla of three petals, their edges valvate in the 

 male and overlapping in the female flower. In the former 

 there are usually six stamens with abbreviated filaments 

 and narrow erect anthers ; in the latter there are three dis- 

 tinct ovaries with sessile hooked stigmas. One of the 

 ovaries only develops into a fruit, which is fleshy and one- 

 seeded, that of Phcenix dactylifera being the date. 



The Date Palm, whose port and general appearance is 

 displayed in our illustration on page 165 of this issue, is a 

 tree sometimes one hundred to one hundred and twenty 

 feet in height, with a trunk covered with the persistent 

 bases of the leaf-stalks and often surrounded at the foot by 

 a dense mass of root-suckers. The trees flower in March 

 and April, and as the male trees are generally less numer- 

 ous than the females, the flowers of the latter are often 

 fertilized artificially. In some parts of India and in Arabia 

 this is done before the flower-sheaths expand, an opening 

 being made in the sheath of the female inflorescence, into 

 which a few pieces of the male panicle are inserted. The 

 fruit ripens in the autumn ; and through long cultivation a 

 number of varieties, differing in the color, shape, taste and 

 size of the fruit, have been developed in northern Africa and 

 central Arabia, which is supposed to produce the best dates. 

 The home of this tree is believed to be the whole arid 

 region from the eastern Canary Islands on the west, 

 through the African Sahara, to the lower basin of the 

 Euphrates. The Date Palm was thought by Brandis to 

 have been introduced into India at the time of the first 

 Mohammedan conquest of Sindh, in the commencement of 

 the eighth century. 



The Date Palm flourishes in the dry regions of northern 

 Africa and western Asia, where it is exposed to excessive 

 heat during the day and not infrequently to frost at night, 

 although it cannot live without a certain amount of 

 moisture in the soil. In Europe it is cultivated in Spain, 

 where it was introduced by the Arabs and where it pro- 

 duces fruit, and on the Riviera in France and Italy, 

 although it rarely fruits there. In southern Italy, Sicily 

 and Greece, the Date Palm is now not uncommon, although 

 the climate does not enable it to produce fruit of good 

 quality. On the island of Delos, before Homer's time, 

 Date Palms sacred to Apollo had been planted ; in Syria 

 and Palestine the cultivation of this tree is older than the 

 earliest historical records ; and on the southern shores of 

 the Caspian it was also once largely cultivated. It is cul- 

 tivated and now reproduces itself in Sindh, in the southern 

 Punjab, and in the Indian trans-Indus territory. It does 

 not, however, thrive in Bengal, where probably both the 

 heat and rainfall are too great for it. 



Not only does the fruit of the Date Palm supply millions 

 of the human race and their beasts of burden with their 

 chief article of food, but from its leaves the huts of many 

 tribes are entirely constructed. The fibre which surrounds 

 the base of the leaf-stalks is manufactured into ropes and 

 coarse cloth, and from the leaf-stalks, crates, baskets, 

 brooms and walking-sticks are made. The centre of the 

 young leaves is eaten as a vegetable, and from the sap, to 

 obtain which, however, the tree must be destroyed, an 

 intoxicating beverage is prepared. 



The wood of the Date Palm is rather light, but is used in 

 house and bridge building, and for various other purposes, 

 although the fruit-bearing trees are so valuable that only the 

 males or trees past the productive age are cut for timber. 



The soil and climate of many parts of southern California 

 are well suited to develop the best qualities of this tree, and 

 it is not improbable that the production of dates will soon 

 become an important and profitable California industry. 

 The Date Palm was first planted in California nearly a 

 century ago by the Jesuit priests who came into the state 

 from Mexico, and their trees may still be seen in the gar- 

 den of their mission-house at San Diego ; and as long ago 

 as 1877 dates raised in California, and produced from 

 trees which were only twenty years old, were exhibited 

 in San Francisco. An account of the introduction of the 

 Date Palm into California, with precise directions for its 

 cultivation and requirements, will be found in the second 

 edition of Wickson's excellent treatise on Califor?iia Fruits 

 atid Hoiv to Grow Them. 



The Date Palm is hardy in some parts' of Florida and on 

 the islands of the Georgia coast, and large plants may be 

 seen in the gardens on Cumberland Island, where they have 

 been growing for at least fifty years. The climate, how- 

 ever, of the south Atlantic states is so wet in summer that 

 the Date Palm will never be cultivated in any part of them 

 except for ornament or as a curiosity. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Nymph^a Parkeriana. — This is a white-flowered, very 

 fragrant species, which was discovered in British Guiana 

 by Mr. C. S. Parker, an amateur botanist and collector, in 

 1824, and was named in compliment to him by Lehmann 

 in 1853. It has the habit and foliage of N. odorata ; indeed, 

 it was considered to be a form of that species until Leh- 

 mann named it as above. The flowers are nearly as large 

 as those of N. alba, pure white, with bright yellow stamens 

 and a sixteen to twenty rayed stigma. N. Parkeriana was 

 cultivated at Kew at least ten years ago, and it was ob- 

 tained from Kew by Mr. E. D. Sturtevant, of New Jersey, 

 but without name. He flowered it, fell in love with it, and 

 then lost it. The same fate befell it at Kew. Thanks, how- 

 ever, to Mr. Jenman, of Demerara, seeds of it have lately 

 been secured and-sent to Kew, and a portion of the seeds 

 has been distributed. We are likely, therefore, to possess 

 this species in abundance soon. 



Tecoma Smithii. — Some time ago I noted in one of my 

 letters the introduction and flowering of this plant at Kew, 

 where it has proved to be a first-rate, free-flowering, hand- 

 some little shrub for pot-culture in a cool house. In a note 

 written for the Gardeners Chronicle I appealed to Australian 

 growers for the true history of the plant, as it had been sent 

 to England from Melbourne, and was said to be a hybrid 

 between T. Capensis and T. ve'lutina, a variety of T. stans. 

 Mr. W. R. Guilfoyle, Director of the Melbourne Botanic 

 Garden, writes that the plant is certainly a hybrid between 

 the two species named, and that with him it always comes 

 quite true from seeds. He says : " Scores of seedlings 

 have been raised from the plants in our botanic gardens, 

 which, with the exception of a slight variation in the foliage, 

 are exactly like the parent-plant. The flowers do not vary 

 in the least degree. T. Smithii flowers for fully nine 

 months in the year." It is remarkable that a plant raised 

 from two well-marked species, and showing characters dis- 

 tinct from both, should come true from seeds. 



The Amateur Orchid Cultivator's Guide Book is the title of 

 a little work on a now well-worn but progressive subject, 

 by a man who is a successful grower of Orchids, having 

 charge of the fine collection owned by Mr. Chamberlain at 

 Highbury, near Birmingham. The book is cheap (half a 

 dollar), and it is good and practical as far as it goes, which 

 is not much further than the amateur seeking for plain in- 

 structions would desire him to go. Mr. Burberry has had 

 considerable practice, and his teaching, as set forth in his 

 book, bears evidence of his all-round knowledge of garden 

 Orchids. It also shows, unfortunately, evidences of hasty 

 writing and proof-reading, and it will not bear looking into 



