According to age, it varies in height, often rising to 50 or 80 feet; it belongs to the section with winged leaves, which average from 15 to 20 feet in length, and are furnished with numerous, close-set, ribbon-like pinnæ about a foot or more in length, the lower becoming spiny; the fruit is produced in pendulous bunches from the axils of the leaves, each bunch weighing from 30 to 50 pounds.

In early times the date palm was abundant in Palestine; its Greek name, Phoenix, gave the name to that part of the country known as Phoenicia. Some of the coins of Tyre and Sidon have on them the figure of a palm; as has also a Jewish coin, struck in the time of Judas Maccabæus; and to commemorate the conquering of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, a coin was struck by Vespasian, representing the figure of a weeping woman sitting under a palm tree. The palm has thus become emblematical of Palestine. Jericho was called the city of palms, and Josephus relates that, in his time, there was a grove near the city seven miles in length, that they were abundant round the Sea of Galilee, and in the lower valley of the Jordan, and that they grew on the Mount of Olives and about Jerusalem. All these, with the exception of a few scattered trees, have disappeared; their

H

fossilized and petrified stems are now the only remains of their once great abundance in these localities. In the oases of the desert of Sinai they grow in clumps and entangled thickets, and furnish one of the principal articles of food for the Bedouin Arabs; the stones when ground form food for their camels.

The palm trees of Elim of the present day are described by the Rev. H. Bonar as follows : "The Palm trees were without number: I began to count them, but having reached the eightieth, I desisted. They extend for more than a mile and a half down the Wady, and must amount to several hundreds, at the lowest estimate. Most of them have four or five stems shooting up from one root. They have been goodly trees, as the prostrate trunks shewed, but have been cut down clean by the ground, and the present forest is made up of shoots, which give a stunted and shaggy appearance to the whole."

The bases of the leaves of the date palm being furnished with strong spines, the cutting of leaves from the tree requires to be cautiously done. It is difficult to reconcile this with "they took branches of palm trees, and went out to meet him;" it must, therefore, be supposed that they were young unexpanded leaves, 6 to 8 feet in length; which, being carried by a number of men in procession, would have an

imposing appearance. This carrying of palm leaves on occasions of festivity was not new to the Jews, as we read in the Apocrypha, 2 Macc. X., 7, that on the restoration of the Temple by Judas Maccabæus the people "bore in their hands branches and fair boughs, and palms also, and sang psalms unto him that had given them good success."

Palm leaves are still used by the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles. For use in this country they are chiefly obtained from Southern France and Italy. At Elché, in the province of Alicanté, in Spain, date palm trees abound, and here, as well as in the countries previously named, for religious purposes the leaves are blanched by tying straw round the crown of leaves before they expand.

The date palm appears to have been early introduced into Southern Europe, but although it grows freely, and attains a considerable height, its fruit does not ripen except under the most favourable conditions, as in South Spain.

The greatest importations of dates to this country come from Spain, Algiers, and other parts of the African coast of the Mediterranean. Plants of the date palm are to be seen in most botanic gardens; one in the Palm House at Kew being upwards of 100 years old. The finest plant at the present time in this country

is the one in the Duke of Northumberland's Garden at Sion House, which has a stem 35 feet high.

In India, palm wine or toddy, which, when distilled, becomes an intoxicating drink called arrack, is obtained by tapping several species of palms; this is also, though in a less degree, obtained from the date palm. This palm sap may probably be the "strong drink" spoken of in Judges xiii., 4, Isa. v., 11, St. Luke i., 15, and other places in the Bible. (See Wormwood).

The date palm belongs to the twenty-second class of Linnæus termed dioecia, which is characterised by plants of the same species bearing stamens and pistils on separate plants—that is, male and female plants-and which appears to have been early known in countries where the fruit of the date tree forms an extensive article of food, for, in order to secure a good crop of dates, a bunch of flowers is removed from the male tree and suspended over the flowers of the female. In the wars between tribes the greatest calamity that can be inflicted on the conquered is the cutting down of their male date trees by the conqueror.

FIG (Heb., teenah).

"And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."-Gen. iii., 7; 4004 B.C.