Tertiary Deposits of Eastern Texas. 



405 



the succeeding Oligocene period the remains of date palms are 

 abundant in Germany, Bohemia, and especially in northern 

 Italy. They are present in the early Miocene of France, 

 Switzerland, and Croatia. A species is recorded from the west, 

 coast of the Adriatic in Pliocene times and the presence of a 

 well marked form which Drude calls Phoenix dactyliferafos- 

 silis, since it is so much like the existing date, is found in the 

 Pleistocene deposits of the volcanic island of Santorin in the 

 ^Effean Sea. The latter occurrence indicates that the date 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 2. Sketch map showing the area within which species of Phoenix 

 occur and the fossil occurrences of Phoenicites (stars). 



palm was endemic in at least a part of southern Europe until 

 comparatively recent geologic times. 



The cultivated date belongs to a group of about a dozen 

 existing species referred to the genus Phoenix, all of which are 

 confined to northern Africa and southern Asia, the hulk of the 

 species being indigenous in the Indian region. Two of the 

 African species, spinosa and reclinata, are small shrubby forms 

 with small fruits, found along the coasts of Senegambia, Sierra 

 Leone and Natal. The true date in countless varieties has 

 existed since prehistoric times in the hot dry zone extending 

 from Senegal eastward to the basin of the Indus. Dates are 

 so readily transported by primitive races and germinate so 

 readily from the seed that it is difficult to establish the original 

 distribution of the species. Egyptian monuments contain 



