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FAMILY
Palmae
SPECIES
Phoenix dactylifera
DESCRIPTION
The date palm tree, with its tall, slender trunk, crown of long fronds, and hanging clusters of fruit, has been cultivated for more than 5000 years. It is both an important staple food crop and an ornamental avenue palm. |
USES
All parts of the tree are important, with over 800 recorded uses. Dates are regarded as a delicacy and added to sweet dishes. They contain Vitamin B6, are included in herbal syrups for catarrh, and are mildly laxative. Young leaves are edible when cooked and the sap provides sugar or palm wine.
This palm, well known since ancient times, was regarded by the Egyptians as being a fertility symbol, it was represented on coins and monuments by the Carthaginians and used as an ornament in triumph pageants by the Greeks and Romans.
In the Christian tradition, its leaves have symbolized peace and reminded of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem. |
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BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION
Imposing palm with a very slender trunk, up to 30 m tall, conspicuously covered with the remains of sheaths from fallen leaves. Its leaves, clustered together in a maximum number of 20-30 and forming a loose crown shaft, are pinnate, up to 6 m long, upper leaves are ascending, basal leaves are re-curved, the segments are coriaceous, linear, rigid and sharp pointed, blue-green in color.
Its flowers, unisexual on dioecious plants, are small, whitish, fragrant, clustered in axillary spadices up to 120 cm long markedly bent downwards by their fruit weight.
These fruits, commonly known as dates, are oblong berries, dark-orange when ripe, up to 50 cm long in the cultivated varieties, their flesh is sacchariferous, it contains one woody seed. |
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