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of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and VinesEncyclopedia
of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and Vines
The
leaf structure is like that of a feather, rather than being folded like a fan
as with Washingtonia, and the leaf stalk is
so short as to be hardly noticeable on the tree. Closer examination will reveal
a stalk bearing long stout spines. The dates, about ¾ inch long, fall from
the female trees but are inedible -- well, objectionable to humans. They come
in orange bunches. After weathering on the ground, they leave behind piles of
characteristically grooved date stones. The tree is related to P. dactylifera,
the date palm, which can be viewed on many television news broadcasts from Bagdhad.Closer
to home you can see P. dactylifera in the Coachilla Valley in Southern
California and the Furnance Creek area of Death Valley National Park. Comparisons
may be made with fan palms in the Inner Quad and also in the environs of the Bookstore.
Palm Drive got its palms in 1893 at the suggestion of university president David Starr Jordan. P. canariensis trees originally alternated with Washingtonia filifera; eventually the fan palms were eliminated. There are now 166 palms lining the entry road.
The sawn-off leaf stubs that give the trunks their characteristic appearance are homes to birds and a variety of seeds that germinate in the collected litter. I noted two live oaks, one Atlas cedar, a blackberry, an ash, and five daughters growing in comfortable pockets of the Canary Island palm between Braun Music Center and Muwekma-tah-ruk (543 Lasuen Mall).
As with pine cones and pineapples, the diamond network on the trunk of the palm is not symmetrical; there are eight columns running down to the left and 13 running more steeply down to the right. This is the phenomenon discussed under Pine Cones and Fibonacci Numbers, page 191.
Isolated specimens are abundant, for example at the entrance of Thermosciences (Building 500). Seedlings volunteer freely from date pits disseminated by birds and rodents, and if there is no objection to the site, they have been allowed to live.
It is possible to transplant these palms even when they are very large. In 1981, many gaps that had occurred in Palm Drive were fi lled with large trees instead of being replaced by young plants. Opportunities were taken to rescue old palms that had become unwanted elsewhere. For example, two 50-foot specimens were transplanted from 532 Channing Avenue, Palo Alto. The name Phoenix comes from Phoenicia, a section of the east Mediterranean coast. The Phoenicians, who were Canaanites, adopted a seafaring life and acquired a ruddy weather-beaten complexion that earned them their name, phoinikos (meaning “red” in Greek).
Palm Drive photograph by L.A. Cicero/Stanford News Service.
Other campus palms: Brahea armata | Brahea edulis | Butia capitata | Chamaerops humilis | Jubaea chilensis | Livistona chinensis | Phoenix canariensis | Syagrus romanzoffianum | Trachycarpus fortunei | Washingtonia filifera | Washingtonia robusta
Illustrations (links open new windows): gallery
Additions/Revisions:Name derivation, genus | species The Greek name for the date palm (details in text above) | of the Canary Islands
Related material: Canopy Trees for Palo Alto Tree Library Botanical
name index | Common name index | Family
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