Phoenix sylvestris- Wild Date Palm/ Silver or Sugar Date Palm/ Khajoor/ Salma/ Sendhi

[J.M. Garg]

Photos taken at Narendrapur near Kolkata on 2/2/08. Male & female flowers are on seperate trees.

Phoenix sylvestris (sylvestris - Latin, of the forest) also known as Silver Date Palm or Sugar Date Palm, is a species of flowering plant in the palm family native to southern Pakistan and most of India. Growing in plains and scrubland to 1300 m, the fruit from this palm species is used to make wine and jelly. The sap is tapped and drunk fresh or fermented into toddy. The fresh sap is boiled to make palm jaggery in West Bengal state of India.

P. sylvestris ranges from 4 to 8 m in height and 40 cm in diameter; not as large as the Canary Island Date Palm, but nearly so, and resembling it. The Leaves are 3 m long, gently recurved, on 1 m petioles with acanthophylls near the base. The leaf crown grows to 10 m wide and 7.5 to 10 m tall containing up to 100 leaves. The inflorescence grows to 1 metre with white, unisexual flowers forming to a large, pendent infructescence. The single-seeded fruit ripens to a purple-red colour.

The above inf. taken from Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_sylvestris

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With regards,
J.M.Garg
"We often ignore the beauty around us"
For learning about our trees & plants, please visit/ join Google e-group (Indiantreepix) http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en
For my Birds, Butterflies, Trees, Lanscape pictures etc., visit  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/J.M.Garg

[J.M. Garg]

Here are two more shots of lower trunk & fruits (in June'2006).