Phoenix (plant)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera)
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
See text |
Phoenix is a genus of about 15-20 species of palms, native from the Canary Islands east across northern and central Africa, the extreme southeast of Europe (Crete), and southern Asia from Turkey east to southern China and Malaysia.
The stems are single, or suckering and clumped, and vary from 1-30 m tall. The leaves are pinnate, 1-6 m long. The plants are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants; pollination is by wind. The flowers are inconspicuous yellowish-brown and about 1 cm wide, but grouped on conspicuous large multi-branched panicles 30-90 cm long. The fruit is a drupe, 1-7 cm long, yellow to red-brown or dark purple when mature, with one seed.
- Selected species
- Phoenix abyssinica
- Phoenix acaulis
- Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island Date Palm)
- Phoenix dactylifera (Date Palm)
- Phoenix loureiri (syn. P. humilis)
- Phoenix paludosa (Mangrove Date Palm)
- Phoenix pusilla
- Phoenix reclinata (Senegal Date Palm)
- Phoenix roebelinii (Pygmy Date Palm)
- Phoenix rupicola (Cliff Date Palm)
- Phoenix sylvestris (Indian Date Palm)
- Phoenix theophrasti (Cretan Date Palm)
The fruit of P. dactylifera, the Date Palm of commerce, is large with a thick layer of fruit pulp, edible, very sweet and rich in sugar; the other species have only a thin layer of fruit pulp.
While P. dactylifera is grown for its dates, P. canariensis the Canary Island Date Palm is widely grown as an ornamental plant. It differs from the former in having a stouter trunk, more leaves to the crown, more closely spaced leaflets and deep green rather than grey-green leaves. The fruit of P. canariensis are edible, but rarely eaten by humans because of their small size and thin flesh.
The different species of the genus frequently hybridise where they grow in proximity. This can be a problem when planting P. canariensis as an ornamental plant, as the hybrid palms are aesthetically inferior and do not match the pure-bred plants when planted in avenues, etc.
Phoenix species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Paysandisia archon and the Batrachedra species B. amydraula (recorded on P. dactylifera), B. arenosella and B. isochtha (feeds exclusively on Phoenix spp).
