Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Date Palm

Hindi Name : खजूर | Scientific Name : Phoenix dactylifera
Family : Arecaceae
Uses : It is used as animal food and a medicine, has environmental uses and social uses and for fuel and food. Date palm fruits possess high nutritional and therapeutic value with significant antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-tumour, anti-diabetic effect and anti-proliferative properties. Date fruit is sweet with cold potency and gives excellent eye nourishment effect, cardio tonic, cures emaciation, etc.
Native: Arabian Peninsula to South Pakistan
General Description:

It is a tree and grows primarily in the subtropical biome. It grows to a height of over 30 m; the stem and new leaves grow from the single terminal bud at the stem apex; roots grow from the base of the trunk, sometimes 50 cm above the ground; main roots about 1.5 cm thick. Leaves enormous, up to 7 m long with a relatively short (50 cm) rachis base or petiole; pinnate, the 50-60 pairs of leaflets long and narrow, attached to a stout central midrib or rachis. They have a normal life of 3-7 years.

Inflorescence is produced in the axil of a 1-year-old leaf; a branched spadix enclosed in a tough spathe that bursts open when the flowers are mature. Male flowers waxy and creamy with 6 stamens and no carpels; female flowers whitish, with 6 rudimentary stamens and 3 carpels. Fruits are yellow to reddish-brown, each with a single seed up to 2.5 cm long, deeply grooved, with a very hard endosperm.