Phoenix theophrasti ancient Greek ‘father of botany,’ had described several types of palms, including one from Crete. Apart from the usually inedible dates and upright fruit clusters, the Cretan species can appear quite similar to the cultivated date ("Phoenix dactylifera"). "Phoenix theophrasti" grows up to 15 m tall, usually with several slender stems. The leaves are pinnate, 2–3 m long, with numerous rigid greyish-green linear leaflets 15–50 cm long on each side of the central rachis. Dead leaves are marcescent, remaining attached to the stem for years after withering. The fruit is an oval yellowish-brown drupe 1.5 cm long and 1 cm
The Phoenix and the Turtle more recently that St. Anne Line is the phoenix and her husband Roger is the turtle. They concur with Clare Asquith that the "bird of loudest lay" represents the composer William Byrd, who was a Roman Catholic convert, and that the crow is the Catholic priest Rev. Henry Garnet, SJ. Martin Dodwell argued further that Shakespeare used St. Anne and Roger Line to symbolise the Catholic Church itself, as disinherited and rejected by England. The Phoenix and the Turtle Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings