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== The Palm of Egypt == | === The Palm of Egypt == | ||
Finding myself for various months in the most beautiful countryside of Basso – Egypt, owned by the late Mr. Serra and adorned with six thousand Palms sown by him, I had the idea of getting information from the indigenous people on something that is ignored in Europe, about this majestic, unique, and most useful plant. | Finding myself for various months in the most beautiful countryside of Basso – Egypt, owned by the late Mr. Serra and adorned with six thousand Palms sown by him, I had the idea of getting information from the indigenous people on something that is ignored in Europe, about this majestic, unique, and most useful plant. | ||
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===Circumcision of the Palm === | ===Circumcision of the Palm === | ||
As soon as one wants to regenerate the trunk of palm that is weak or deficient, they make holes in the trunk at a meter around the GERIT and stick various pieces of wood in them. They put silt from the Nile all around these pieces of wood, and they frequently dampen it. They leave it until the next year, until the season when it has formed new roots; then they cut the trunk underneath the silt, uproot the old one, and transplant the top so that the plant and what is called the ''''Tahara'''' (circumcision) are regenerated. | |||
===The Difficulty in Recognizing the Sex of a Palm === | |||
It is known to be impossible to tell the sex of a palm before it flowers. The famous Mohamed Aly, who was heavily engaged in the well-being of Egypt, had promised a large reward to whoever could tell the if a palm was male or female before it flowered; he questioned all the gardeners and none could say. Mr. Serra told me that a boastful Arab, who was a gardener from Lake Edko, came to his town and boasted that by looking at the branches, he could tell the sex of the plant. Mr. Serra sent for a branch of a male tree to be brought, keeping the so-called expert at his house to show it to him. He said it was female, they laughed in his face, but he was unperturbed, like a con artist used to the jeers, excused/justified himself with the usual ''''maalesc'''' (it does not matter) and so he proved what the great prince wanted, and before the SICITURA nothing is known. | |||
=== Great Diversity in the Season When the Palm Flourishes === | |||
The unique palm pant has not established a season to produce flowers, since one year it will bloom, the next it will not, and it might the third; it varies greatly – there are some palms that show signs of their sex at two, three and five years of age, and others that do not until eight, ten, fifteen and twenty years. | |||
=== The Season of Flowering === | |||
Some palms flower in February, but generally they do so in March then continue throughout April and for part of May. | |||
=== Marriage of the Palm === | |||
The two sexes are known to flower, though the flowers of the male or those of the female may be in the ''''cuss'''' (vase) or a kind of pouch from which then the female's are also produced. They are the same as the male's but longer and thinner, and it is from the male pouch, by a tradition of the wise ancient Egyptians, that the hard-working Arab man–who obtains the biggest and best fruit–cuts the ''''Dakar'''' (the male flower), splits it into various pieces, and puts one in the center of the ''''Nitaie'''' (the female flower). He then ties it so it does not fall and so that the air, agitating them both, lets dust into the female flowers to fertilize them, creating a forced marriage instead of waiting for the random arrival of the season's winds, and this way one male can fertilize hundreds of females. | |||