Date palm
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The date palm is not only a staple crop for millions of people, but also plays a cultural role in many religions.
Thought to have first been cultivated well over 6000 years ago in the Middle East, dates are still consumed all over the world today.
In 2021, 9.6 million tonnes of dates were harvested around the world, with nearly 20% coming from Egypt alone.
More recently, Kew’s collections have helped discover more about the history and domestication of this famous fruit tree.
There are dozens of date palm cultivated varieties (cultivars) worldwide, including Medjool which produces large, caramel tasting fruits, and Deglet Noor which produces fruits with a firmer texture and more delicate flavour.
Plant description
The date palm grows about 30 metres tall. Its stem, formed of old leaf bases, is topped by a crown of leaves. These are long pointed shiny leaves that grow to about 5 metres long. Spikes of flowers grow from the point where the leaves join the stem. Male and female flowers grow on different plants and are wind pollinated, but in cultivation this tends to be done by hand.
The fruit, known as the date, varies in shape, size and colour between varieties, although generally they are dark and oval shaped. More than 1,000 dates can grow on a single cluster.
Plant uses
Beauty and cosmetics
Oil from date seeds, a mix of oleic and lauric acid, is used in soaps and cosmetics.
Cultural
Dates are referenced multiple times in the Torah, the Qur'an and the Bible.
The honey in the ‘land of milk and honey’ mentioned in Exodus is likely thought to be dates.
A closed palm frond known as the lulav is one of the Four Species used as part of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, symbolising the victory of the Jewish people before the judgement of God.
Crosses made from palm leaves are given out on the Christian festival of Palm Sunday, commemorating when palms leaves were placed in front of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem.
Date palms appear in the imagery of Jannah, an eternal paradise after death in Islamic religion.
In ancient Assyrian religion, a palm tree is the world tree than connects heaven and earth.
In ancient Rome, the palm became linked to victory, with those who had won a military victory wearing a toga with a palm motif.
A date palm appears on the emblem of Saudi Arabia.
Food and drink
Dates are eaten either raw or pitted and stuffed with various fillings, such as other fruits or nuts.
Dates are a part of various savoury dishes, including tagines and roast lamb.
Dates go into a variety of sweet desserts including sticky toffee pudding, Christmas pudding and date loaf.
Dates can be processed into syrup, powdered to form sugar, or fermented and distilled to produce wine.
Health
Dates are a good source of magnesium and potassium.
Materials and fuels
The middle ribs of the leaves from date palm are used to make furniture and boxes.
Fibre from date palms is used as packing material and cushioning.
Date palm leaves are woven into baskets, mat and clothing.
The stems of date palms are used as firewood
Date seeds are used as animal feed.
Did you know?
The English name date, along with the scientific name dactylifera, come from the Greek word for ‘finger’, supposedly referring to the shape of the fruit.
A date palm seed stored for 2000 years was successfully sprouted and grown to a full tree.
Where in the world?
Desert and desert-like environments, with well-drained deep sandy loam soils.
Find it in our gardens
Kew Gardens
A botanic garden in southwest London with the world’s most diverse living plant collection.
Location
View map of Kew GardensBest time to see
Our work
Being such an important plant, images of the date palm are found across history, in coin engravings to stone panels produced by ancient civilisations.
While this gives us useful historical insight, what has been less clear is how the date palm has evolved over time.
Scientists think the date palm was first domesticated in the Persian Gulf over 6,000 years ago, but its full ancestry is still not fully understood.
DNA sequencing gives us a chance to unravel the domestication history of date palm, by comparing the genomes of ancient and modern date palms.
But where do we find an ancient date palm?
Kew’s Economic Botany Collection holds over 100,000 extraordinary objects all made from plants or fungi.
Searching the collection, Kew scientists found a 2,100 year old Egyptian artefact from Saqqara made of plaited date palm leaves.
Our scientists found that this ancient date palm has a very similar genetic code to that of the modern North African date palm, along with genetic information from two wild relatives; the Cretan date palm (P. theophrasti) and the sugar date palm (P. sylvestris).
Using Kew’s extensive collections combined with modern DNA sequencing has opened a unique window into the past of the date palm, and help us understand so much more about its origins.
