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== The Palm of Egypt ==

It is known to be impossible to tell the sex of a palm before it flowers. The famous Mohamed Aly, who was highly involved in the well-being of Egypt, had promised a large reward to whoever could tell 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 claimed that by looking at the branches he could tell the sex of the plant. Mr. Serra sent for the 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 and they laughed in his face, but he was unperturbed. Like a con artist used to the jeers, excused 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.

=== The Significant Variation of the Season In Which the Palm Flourishes  ===

The unique palm pant has not shown to produce flowers in any fixed season 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 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. By a tradition of the wise ancient Egyptians, the hard-working Arab man, who obtains the biggest and best fruit, cuts the ''''Dakar'''' (the male flower) from the male pouch, 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 union instead of having to wait for the spontaneous arrival of the season's winds. This way, one male can fertilize hundreds of females.

The pollen of the male palm smells similar to its sperm, the Arabs thought of it, therefore, as an aphrodisiac and would sometimes eat it.  

The female pollen was able to be fertilized by the male even from a far distance because of a strong, fundamental attraction between them from the universe. If this procedure were carried out in Europe, fruit would be produced as a result of this phenomenon of attraction.  

I was assured by many palm growers that they had seen a male plant become female, and had even seen some become hermaphroditic; in Arabic, ''''Hente'''' ,that is, ''''half male and half female.''''

Both the males and females multiply substantially, and these offspring are always related to the plant that created them. One sees the father and its child, and the mother and its child, flower simultaneously; one always notices that the leaves of these offspring do not generate like the palms born from a kernel, rather, they behave like the adult. Generally, the offspring of the female are transplanted and those of the male are destroyed.  

There is a belief among Coptic and Arabic farmers of palms that the male plant has a bladder under its root, the same as that of animals known as ''''Bedten'''' (two eggs), and by removing them, the male becomes female.  

I dug up the ground of various palms of different developmental stages and I found nothing. If they were lost during the transplantation process then these trees would all be female, and if this were true, everyone would extract the eggs of the male to make it female given that one female is enough to fertilize many plants. Ultimately, the dishonest people of mid-Egypt would want a male palm to make it immoral, and others of the Basso, who are generally more honest, say ''''Kalam battal di'''' to this and would speak badly of it. They would want to say it was not true; everyone, however, claims that no one can find it.  

In some small, abandoned oases in the Arabic desert, I saw several palm groves with all of their branches that nature had given them, and because of this they had a strange and awkward appearance. The cultivated palm has a thin, sturdy appearance and grows larger each year; the ''''gerit'''' (branches) are cut, and the industrious Arab is able to create so many useful domestic objects out of them that there would be too many to list.  

Around the top of the trunk, the large parts of the cut branches are left to be able to tether heavy bunches to them. These branches, called ''''Gahf'''', are cut the year after. They are either burned or made into ''''magascia'''' (brooms). Under the ''''gahf'''' one finds the ''''eldiffa'''', a cinnamon-colored canvas that is designed beautifully by nature, out of which various kinds of ropes are made. This material may have given primitive men the idea to weave and create the first articles of clothing; just a single piece of this fabric is enough to cover oneself, which is something even barbarians did as seen by the people at the first waterfalls.