16 BULLETIN 1125, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.. 
to a nearly flat blade with broad, coarse, overlapping pinna?. The uncured 
fruits are about If inches long, li or If inches in diameter, irregularly egg 
shaped. They are a rich orange color in ripening, dull tan when mature. 
The thick amber-colored flesh is a little coarse, but very rich and luscious. 
The seeds, about 1 inch long by three-eighths of an inch broad, have mostly 
rounded ends, a rather shallow ventral furrow, and the germ pore nearly 
central. In the heavy soil and unusual moisture conditions, together with the 
cooler climate of the Tempe Garden, this variety has perfected but little 
edible fruit, and the ripening has been very uneven. 
By the use of this description the writer identified the "0?a 
de Beclrichen" trees at Tempe, Ariz., with trees called " Sewi " 
which he examined in September, 1913. in the gardens at Bedrashen 
and later in the section about Hawamdia and Abu el Nemrus. (PI. 
II Figs. 1 and 2.) 
During the following October the writer visited Kharga and 
Dakhla Oases of western Egypt, and there observed the very close 
similarity of the Saidy variety, the great commercial date of the five 
western oases, with the " Sewi " of Gizeh Province. Near Kharga 
village are the imposing ruins of the temple built by Darius I at 
Hibis, about 500 B. C. (PL III.) It was from luxuriant Saidy 
palms growing beside this temple gateway that the writer made 
the first critical study of the leaf and fruit characters which was 
to establish the identity of the Saidy with the " Sewi " variety of 
Gizeh. 
It w T as also during a stay of a week in late October at Rashida 
village in Dakhla Oasis, a center of extensive Saidy plantations 
(PI. IY, Fig. 1), that another interesting bit of information was 
picked up. The date harvest was nearly completed, and a camel 
caravan from each district was starting for the river by the " Derb el 
Tawil " or " Long Road " nearly every night. In a conversation 
the Sheik Abu Bakr, the omda of the village, expounded the im- 
portance of the Saidy variety to the western oases substantially 
as follows: 
This date is the one marketable commodity we can depend upon in all of 
these oases. We have the same variety in all of them. We have it in Siwa, 
away to the north. We have it at Baharia. very many trees. We have it at 
Farafra. We have it, as you see, here in Dakhla, more than anywhere else. 
We have it at Kharga. where you came through. We can raise enough rice 
and wheat for our bread, but we must have something to sell to get sugar and 
tea and cloth and some money to pay our taxes, and this date is what we 
iill depend upon. We all call it by the same name, the Saidy, but when these 
Bedouin traders get over to the valley with it they call it the " Wahi." 
It was thus through this conversation with a friendly oasis sheik, 
200 miles back in the Libyan Desert, that the location and the true 
identity of the long-sought " Wahi " date was learned after 12 years 
of search. The solution of the puzzle is really quite simple. The 
Arabic for an oasis is " wan." feminine "wahat"; thus Dakhla, in 
an Egyptian census of taxable date palms, is " el Wahat el Dakhla." 
The Bedouin traders, ever fond of making a mystery of w T here they 
obtain their goods, call this date in the valley bazaars "Wahi," 
vaguely, the date from "el wall." or the oasis, so that the name 
Saidy is quite unknown to the Egyptian public. In the same manner 
llayany dates grown in the district near Birket el Hadji, the "Pool 
of the Pilgrims," on the borderland between the delta and the 
hot sand dunes of the Arabian Desert, being the earliest of that va- 
riety to reach the market, were known as "Bala Birket el Hadji." 
