Balmo

The Essence

"Phoenix caespitosa is a dwarf, stemless date palm that clusters into extensive thickets across the dry country from the Horn of Africa to southern Arabia. Emilio Chiovenda described it in 1929 from Somalia, where it grows in the northern Sanaag, Nugaal and Bari regions; Collenette (1985) found it fairly widespread in the Asir and southern Hijaz of Saudi Arabia, and the synonym Phoenix arabica Burret was recorded from Yemen. Most of the many Phoenix names published for Africa refer to the polymorphic P. reclinata, but Barrow's 1998 Kew monograph kept P. caespitosa separate on floral grounds: its staminate petals are rounded at the apex rather than acute to acuminate. The fruits are small dates, 10-16 mm long, ripening deep orange to purplish-brown. Barrow describes the mesocarp as sweet and moist and much sought after by animals including humans in Somalia, and the fruit is harvested from the wild for local use; Czech botanists working in Yemen in 2010, however, found the flesh thin, drying and of no pronounced flavour, so quality may vary between populations. Knowledge of the species is uneven. Of 602 GBIF occurrence records, 565 come from Saudi Arabia against 17 from Yemen and 10 from Somalia, and the herbarium material Barrow cited is sparse and old. The Djibouti record rests on a single unvouchered 1971 report by Moore of a caespitose Phoenix growing alongside Livistona carinensis near Bankouale, so the western edge of the range is not firmly documented. POWO additionally maps the palm to Oman on the strength of a 2012 account of the flora of central-southern Dhofar, a country covered by neither Barrow's monograph nor the IUCN assessment."

Chiovenda described the species from Somalia in 1929. Burret published Phoenix arabica from Yemen in 1943, now treated as its only synonym. Moore reported a caespitose Phoenix growing with Livistona carinensis near Bankouale, Djibouti, in 1971, but Barrow notes that this report is not substantiated with a voucher specimen. Collenette recorded the palm as fairly widespread in the Asir and southern Hijaz of Saudi Arabia in 1985. Barrow's monograph of Phoenix, published in Kew Bulletin in 1998, remains the standard treatment; the Somali herbarium material it cites is sparse and old, collections from 1924, 1944, 1973, 1980 and 1995 held at FT, K and UPS. The palm was reported from central-southern Dhofar in Oman in 2012, and was documented on the Jabal Bura massif in Yemen by Czech botanists in February 2010.