DATE VARIETIES 225 



fresh or boiled; rare at Baghdad, where it is much 

 tQore highly esteemed. It is never boiled at Baghdad; 

 it is never preserved in any other way at Busreh. After 

 its sixth year the offshoot bears heavily, ripening 

 its fruits about September 15. 



The following description was made from a 

 boiled specimen at Busreh : form oblong-ovate, widest 

 near the flattened base, thence tapering to the broadly 

 pointed apex; size medium, length one and one- 

 fourth to one and one-half inch, breadth at widest 

 point three-fourths to seven-eighths inch. Surface 

 hard and rough, golden brown to hght brown in 

 color, bloom none. Skin thin, dry, hard, profusely 

 wrinkled in all directions but adhering to the flesh 

 very closely. Flesh hard, dry, coarsely granular, 

 one-eighth to three-sixteenths inch thick, golden 

 brown near skin but becoming lighter in color toward 

 the seed. Seed oblong, blunt at base, broadly 

 pointed at apex, seven-eighths inch long, five- 

 sixteenths inch wide, fairly smooth, brownish gray, 

 ventral channel almost closed. Flavor sweet, very 

 slightly astringent. 



Bu. Narinja or sometimes Qush Bu Narinja, 

 Father of the Orange, because of its color*. A 

 common soft date in the Persian Gulf and inland 



Baghdad reached the conclusion that it was originally the same as 

 Bumi or Birni (see Loghat el Arab, No. 11, Baghdad, April, 1912.) 

 But even granting this, the two varieties are certainly distinct now, 

 if indeed there be not two or more varieties contained in each name. 

 The lexicographer Abu Hanifah makes the interesting suggestion that 

 this variety is identical with the famous Sayhanl, which grows in the 

 Hijaz and particularly at Khaybar, east of Madina, and is known 

 in Algeria as Kasbeh. 



*The Persian naranj originally meant flame-colored; hence 

 it has come to mean the fruit of that color, in most modern languages. 

 Cf. Spanish naranja; our own word orange is of the same origin. 



