Date palm Date palm Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from the Fertile Crescent region straddling between Egypt and Mesopotamia. The species is widely cultivated across Northern Africa, The Middle East, The Horn of Africa and South Asia, and is naturalized in many tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. "P. dactylifera" is the type species of genus "Phoenix", which contains 12–19 species of wild date palms, and is the major
Fruit tree propagation from which it came. That is, it will be a fresh individual with an unpredictable combination of characteristics of its own. Although this is desirable in terms of producing novel combinations from the richness of the gene pool of the two parent plants (such sexual recombination is the source of new cultivars), only rarely will the resulting new fruit tree be directly useful or attractive to the tastes of humankind. Most new plants will have characteristics that lie somewhere between those of the two parents. Therefore, from the orchard grower or gardener's point of view, it is preferable to propagate