GRAMINACEOUS PLANTS. 295 
nation of the female flowers, a practice which has been carried on 
from the earliest times in the countries where the date is cultivated. 
The male flower of the Date Tree is borne on a very short sepalous 
calyx; has a thin petalous corolla much larger, with six stamens, 
furnished with long linear anthers, the two cells of which open 
themselves from within by two longitudinal ‘slits. 
The female flowers present a double floral envelope, each whorl 
of which is formed of three pieces, forming three distinct pistils, 
each surmounted by a stigmata in the form of a hook. 
Of these three pistils one only develops itself, ripens, and 
becomes an elongated, ovid berry, with a slight epidermis of a 
yellowish red, a solid and slightly viscous pulp, and an endocarp 
represented by a slight pellicle enveloping the nucleus, which is the 
seed. This seed is cylindrical, growing thinner at its two extremi- 
ties, deeply grooved in its whole length on one side, and presenting 
in the middle of the other a small circular depression—an oper- 
culum, which is destined to fall out at the moment of germination 
to let out the radicle germs, in the manner described in the chapter 
on Germination, in speaking of the Indian Shot. In short, this 
operculum corresponds to a little hollow where the germ is placed 
m such a manner that its great axis (if one can speak of the great 
axis of such a little thing) is perpendicular to the surface of the 
seed. It will be seen, in conclusion, from Fig. 354, which gives a 
representation of the seed of a Date, that it is almost entirely 
_ Composed of a hard horny albuminous substance, the = 
thick walled cells of which are filled with albuminous 
and fatty matter. 
_ The Date Tree, indigenous to Arabia and the north 
of Africa, is pre-eminently the tree of the oasis of the 
desert; that which, according to the allegorical language 
of the Orientals, plunges its foot into the water and its 
into the fires of heaven. It is planted as an 
emamental tree in Corsica, Sardinia, and in the north 
oe of Italy, but it does not ripen in these countries, or only 
_ Mperfectly. By incisions in the trunk of the Date _ eee 
Palm a sweet liquid is obtained which is called the milk Fig,"4—Seet 
of the Palm Tree, which after being subject to fermenta- . 
a - Hon takes a vinous flavour. When distilled, this liquid furnishes 
