A fibre-filled way to start your day: Eid Mubarak!

Species name: Phoenix dactylifera

Common name: date palm

Location: first 5 images from Dave's Garden user palmbob, last image from Dave's Garden user QCHammy

Date palms are magnificent trees (although, they're not truly trees because they're monocots and can't produce true wood), and not just because of their genus name (seriously? How cool is the genus Phoenix?!). And to be named after a dinosaur (the pterodactyl)? Awesome! OK, so I don't actually know for sure the date palm was named after a giant mythological bird that can be reborn multiple times and a flying dinosaur, but a girl can dream. The date palm was likely first domesticated to be an edible palm species in Iraq (most palm fruit you do not want to eat; many produce pretty potent fruit that would make you very sick very quickly), although a closely-related species was also domesticated in and around Brazil. They are now becoming very popular ornamental species in tropical locations because of a few ideal characteristics: they are long-lived, they are drought tolerant, are highly wind tolerant, and are tolerant of salt spray on their trunks and leaves (even when young).

Dates have been eaten as fruit for thousands of years. There's even evidence of date fruit being left as an offering in ancient Egyptian burial sites and in mummy sarcophaguses (sarcophagi? You get what I mean). No one is quite sure what the symbolism of leaving such fruit represents, as date pits are present with some bodies but not others. There is the suggestion that it might have to do with the time of year the body was buried (more on this later). Date palms are dioecious, meaning they have completely separate male and female plants. In order to have a date palm plantation, one must plant both male and female trees in order to get a crop (the male tree only provides the pollen, the female tree is where the fruit are produced). Unfortunately, the male plants are simply a waste of space in the plantation and so are usually not planted (sorry to all the men out there!), and instead alternate pollination methods are used. In certain areas, date palms are such important crop species that male flowers complete with pollen are often sold in jars in outdoor markets around the time that pollination would be occurring. If you were a date palm farmer, you would buy a jar and sprinkle the pollen in front of a large fan that would blow it across your plantation. I'm sure seeing this in person would be absolutely wild; not to mention it would really wreak havoc on your seasonal allergies if you had them! There are other ways to hand-pollinate female date palm flowers; in Iraq there are highly trained pollination personnel that climb the trunks using only a rope and pollinate the flowers using either a hand-fan or paint brush.

The fruits of these trees are remarkably nutritious, and are one of the best sources of potassium of any edible plant. They also contain a surprisingly high amount of protein, are a good source of dietary fibre,  and a good source of zinc (an element very important in the proper functioning of many of the enzymes and proteins in the body). Aside from eating the whole fruit (which may be eaten stuffed with a variety of yummy things like almonds, cream cheese or a more savoury version with tahini or hummus), there is a beverage called "palm wine" that is produced from the sap of the plant in India. It is fermented using traditional methods dating back thousands of years (even today!), and consumed at special occasions. In Pakistan, there is a syrup-like substance that is harvested from the plants and used to seal leatherwares and to prevent pipes from leaking. The sweet sap of the trees might also be condensed and evaporated to produce palm sugar, also called jaggery.

Date palms also have a significant role in religious symbolism. Christians use the leaves of this tree to make crosses on Palm Sunday, a symbol to represent the palm leaves that were scattered on the ground for Jesus' entry to Jerusalem. But, of course, I wouldn't have chosen to profile this plant today if I wanted to talk about its symbolism to the Christian faith; I would have done that near Easter!

Dates are traditionally the first food eaten at the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan, a month-long religious fast from sun up to sun down performed by Muslims worldwide, consumed with a drink of water or weak tea. After morning prayers, it is the beginning of Eid al-Fitr (the Sweet Festival), often celebrated with Eid ul-Adar (the Feast of the Sacrifice, traditionally approximately 70 days after the end of Ramadan). The timing of Ramadan changes yearly, but is based on the lunar calendar. The first day of Ramadan is the first day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and the first day is determined by the sighting of the crescent moon (if the moon is clouded then by default the month starts the following day). During the month of Ramadan no food items (or other pleasurable things in life) are consumed between sun up and sun down. At the end of the month, the breaking of the fast is celebrated with a big feast and the day of Eid al-Fitr. You would go around wishing your neighbours Eid Mubarak, which (roughly translated) means "Happy Ramadan." Guess what today is? Eid al-Fitr! :)

Eid Mubarak, Happy Ramadan, to all of my Muslim readers!

The last of the palms: Otto von Bismarck's tree

Species name: Bismarckia nobilis

Common name: Bismarck palm

Location: Dominican Republic

Well, we have finally come to the end of my images from Dominican Republic, and this is my last plant species to profile from my lovely vacation in February (I can't believe these pictures have lasted me until May! I need to go on vacation more often...). I figured since it's the last one, I should probably go out with a bang...

The Bismarck palm is native to, like almost all palm species, Madagascar and is declining in numbers there (like many, if not most, of their endemic plant species). The fertile land is being cleared and converted to agriculture, with a few select trees being saved to represent landmark "specimen trees" throughout the landscape. Bismarck palms can be incredibly long-lived, have enormous canopies if given enough space, and provide great shade and habitat for other species. By leaving even just a few Bismarck palms, Madagascar is potentially saving tens of species who use these trees as refuge. Unfortunately, agricultural crops are worth far more money to the economy of Madagascar, and these trees likely don't stand a chance of sticking around for long. It's a shame; a country that was once one of the most biodiverse locations in the world is now becoming a barren agricultural landscape. I know I've poo-poo'd on Madagascar in a few blog posts, but the more people know about their biodiversity crisis the more that can be done about it. World economies really need to start putting pressure on countries that house the most diversity to stop cutting down forests because the species themselves have some sort of economic value. It's a slippery slope once you put a price on diversity, but it's true what they say in the business and commerce world: Money talks. Fortunately for the worldwide population of Bismarck palms, they are planted in huge numbers around the world as ornamental species (in the tropics and sub-tropics; they can actually survive temperatures as low as -6 degrees Celsius for short amounts of time). There are two main varieties of this tree: the green kind that's pictured above, and a variety that is almost blue because of a very thick layer of wax that is deposited on the outside of all of the leaves (which you might guess would be much more tolerant of drought and cold snaps; you would be correct with that assumption).

Bismarck palms are some of the most easily recognizable palm trees in the entire world...once you know what you're looking for. They have characteristic fan-shaped fronds with a very thick petiole connecting the leaves to the trunk of the tree. These petioles, as you can see from the image with the pink arrow, are curved presumably to allow the fronds to sway from side to side but prevent the snapping of the fronds if shaken up and down (since we all remember from elementary school that an arch is much stronger than a straight line...right?). This also provides a really unique habitat for animals, other plant species, fungi, and even bacteria since all of the rain that the fronds catch is funnelled down the petiole towards the trunk of the tree. Because the bases of these petioles are so warm and moist, they usually rot right off the tree before the leaf has a chance of dying, especially in very warm, wet areas. The inflorescences produced are also quite characteristic, and look a bit like marine ropes emerging from the base of a leaf. These mature into flowers (some male flowers are pictured in the 8th image; you can tell because they are full of stamens and very little of anything else), which either produce pollen or ovules. These trees, like the pacaya palm (which you can read all about HERE), are dioecious meaning one plant either produces male or female flowers but never both. The trees with the female flowers end up producing the fruit, which starts off green when immature and ripens to be yellow or brown (you can see the green fruit in the bottom image). The fruit are not reported to be edible by humans, although I'm sure someone somewhere has tried them. These are the preferred fruit of some birds and other animal species, so these trees do play an integral role in the food webs of the ecosystems they're living in.

I keep mentioning that these trees are integral parts of their ecosystems, so I think it's about time to show you what I mean. In the two pictures below (the same image, the first one is unaltered and the second one has a bunch of boxes around interesting features) you can see symbiotic plants and animals all living in the same tree:

The green and yellow boxes show the fruit of the Bismarck tree: the green box shows the immature green fruit and the yellow box shows the more mature yellow and brown fruit. Inside the pink box are three different species of plants, the heart-shaped leaf vine, the oval-shaped weedy plant, and the roundish-shaped weedy plant. What these species of plants are I have no idea; they were about 15 meters in the air and I wasn't about to climb the tree to find out! There are also a whole lot of sticks at the top of the tree, which is weird (in the purple box). In fact, I'm guessing that's the way those three plant species managed to make it up into the top of that lone tree; there are no trailing stems or roots to suggest that they "climbed" up there. In the orange box we have a lone bird, who seems to just be hanging out on an old petiole of a leaf. But is he really?

Well, Mr. Bird there isn't actually just hanging out on a petiole by chance; he's protecting his nest. Yes, that massive thicket of twigs was more than likely made by that ridiculously tiny bird (you probably are aware of the species; we call them "that brown bird that makes all the noise at 5 am during the spring" and this common name probably reflects about 500 species of bird). In fact, we stood under the tree for a while and watched more than one of these little brown birds fly to and from the nest; there's likely a whole family of them living up there. In hindsight, it was probably pretty stupid standing under the tree staring up at them (not that I'm afraid of a tiny brown bird or anything): if you're really observant you'll see white patches all over the underside of the palm fronds. Those aren't patches of fungi. Those are patches of "bird paint."

Here's another example of plant species that exploit this tree. Again, I have no idea what species this is since they're just tiny seedlings, but these are growing from seeds that would have been blown down those arc-shaped petioles and landed at the base of the leaf where there is likely an accumulation of organic material that is damp and warm: perfect conditions for plants (amongst other things) to germinate. These plants likely won't last long being squished into a petiole like that, but depending on what species they are they might be able to complete their entire life cycle without ever leaving the protection of their host plant. If those are species that are perennials or require much more space to grow, they'll likely die before producing anything substantial.

And, like I promised in my first blog post about pictures of plants I took while in the Dominican Republic, lizards also call this tree home. These pictures represent what is likely two different species of anole lizard (Anolis spp.) that are in all likelihood native to Dominican. If you think about it, these trees are absolutely perfect habitat for lizards to hide from predators in the petiole hollows, build nests at the bases of petioles, and jump from leaf to leaf to catch bugs to eat. They were pretty curious as to what I was doing holding a camera so close to their home; I guess I did neglect to ask them permission to photograph their treehouse. Next time I'll make sure to bring "lizard waivers" with me!

I hope you've enjoyed the rather long series about "Plants in the Dominican Republic" over the last few months! 

The Pac(aya) Man tree

Species name: Chamaedorea tepejilote

Common name: pacaya, guaya, palmito dulce

Location: Dominican Republic

The pacaya palm, sometimes called the pacaya grande depending on where you're from, is native to Central America from Mexico south to Panama. It is one of the most common palms native to the Americas, second only to Washingtonia palms native to California (which are planted in massive numbers as ornamental palm species). Because they are so attractive, pacaya palms have been transported throughout the Caribbean for use as ornamental species, but you will rarely find them outside of the Western Hemisphere. Unlike many palms, this species is highly shade tolerant, and actually "sun intolerant". The leaves, as you can see in the image above, become yellowed and sunburnt very quickly when exposed to direct sunlight so they are best planted in the shade of other trees.

The variety of this tree most commonly grown as an ornamental species are types that "cluster," as opposed to single stems. In the wild, this is incredibly rare but in cultivation it's common. It leads to a much more attractive bunch of stems, as opposed to one tall and spindly stem. The other benefit of growing this variety is that it is much more resistant to hurricane damage, since it is more difficult to disturb a clump of plants all connected via underground rhizomes than it is to disturb one lone tree.

This tree is an example of one of the many palm species that are dioecious. This means that there are separate male and female flowers on different plants; this is exactly like with holly plants, where you will only have red berries produced on female plants if the male is present (which doesn't produce red berries). The determination of "sex" in a plant is quite different than it is in a human; instead of being determined by a chromosome like it is in humans (with human females being XX and human males being XY) and it's instead a cluster of genes on a chromosome. Certain alleles, or copies of the gene, determine either "maleness" or "femaleness". The plants pictured above are likely male; in the entire cluster there was no evidence of fruit being produced, which occurs during all months of the year.

The seeds when ripe are apparently edible, as are the flowers (with the female flowers tasting significantly better than the male flowers, apparently). I would highly recommend you avoid eating any palm fruit unless you are absolutely positive of the species identification; many palm fruits are deadly toxic. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, the pickled female flowers of this plant are seen as delicacies and are served only during special meals.