SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 17 
Zervudachi. mistaking this local description for the real name of 
the variety, shipped Havany offshoots to Mr. Fairchild under the 
name of " Birket el Hag^i," and it was not until the writer's visit to 
Cairo in September. 1913, that this confusion was straightened out. 
though the Havany is by far the most abundant date m the delta 
region of Egypt. 
The identity of the " TTahi " with the Saidy was further con- 
firmed in the following Xovember. when the writer visited Fayum in 
company with T. TV. Brown, horticultural director of the Egyptian 
Ministry of Agriculture. At Abshawa. or Ebchawai, a village in 
western Fayum. a Bedouin trader was found just in from the desert 
with a small camel train loaded with dates which he called "Wahi." 
(PL V. Fig. 2). At first he claimed that he had come from the 
Siwa Oasis, though every one in the village knew that he had never 
been there, but under the cross-questioning of the omda, or village 
headman, admitted that he had bought his dates in Baharia Oasis. 
6 days' journey from Fayum. A bag of his dates was purchased, and 
examination showed them to be identical with the Saidy dates seen 
in Dakhla. These dates were shipped to Mr. Fairchild at Washing- 
ton, who positively identified them with the "Wahi" dates he had 
seen in Fayum 12 years earlier. 
Thus the identity of the " Wahi " and Saidy was established. It 
may be interesting at this point to compare the description of the 
Saidy date of the oasis and the " Sewi " dates of Gizeh, as prepared 
bv the writer from notes made in the gardens in the autumn of 1913 
and published in 1915 in Department Bulletin No. 271 (00)." 
SAIDY. 
(Saidi, Wahi.) 
Trees with heavy trunks and stiffly spreading leaves 10 to 14 feet long, the 
heavy ribs with very broad bases. 12 There is a space of clear petiole of 12 to IP 
inches below the first spines. The rib is strongly rounded dorsally and tapers 
but slowly, its outcurves being stiff rather than graceful. 
The spine area is from 2£ to Si feet, the spines of medium weight or quite 
heavy, placed singly and rather scattered, from 2 inches long below to 7 or 8 
inches in the upper area, and passing into a stiff ribbon pinna? or spike pinnse 
20 to 24 inches long and one-half to three-fourths of an inch wide. The normal 
pinna? following these at 4 to 5 feet are 20 to 24 inches long and 1^ to If 
inches wide, but dropping steadily in length to 12 to 14 inches near the apex. 
Their greatest width of li to If inches is reached at about three-fourths of 
the blade length from the base. The pulvini are unusually heavy, deeply 
cream colored, or slightly brownish in exposed places. The pinnre are rather 
coarse and harsh, 0.018 to 0.019 of an inch or sometimes 0.025 of an inch thick 
and conspicuously bluish green with a heavy waxy bloom. This bluish green 
color is very noticeable when the leaves are seen in a mass. 
The 4-ranked arrangement of the pinna? is conspicuous, and the narrow axial 
angles and strong angles with the blade plane formed by the lower antrorse 
pinna? give the leaf a bristling an 1 midable appearance. The valley is 
close and narrow nearly to the apex ^ the blade. The pinna? groups are of 
the normal types till quite near the apex, and the paired groups of the antrorse- 
retrorse type are largely in the majority. 
The orange-yellow fruit stalks are strikingly long, of medium weight, or 
rather heavy in some cases. 
11 Since this bulletin is out of print, it seems desirable to quote from it at length those 
parts which bear upon the identity of the dates which have gone under the names " Wahi." 
" Oga de Bedrichen." and " Sewi." 
1! Notes in parentlu j sis following color terms in this and following pagi :.>late 
numbers in Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, Robert Ridgway. Washington, 1912 
8965—23 3 
