Dates

The date is the fruit of a palm tree, Phoenix dactylifera, native to the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. In the late nineteenth century, settlers in the American Southwest noted that parts of the area enjoyed similar conditions suitable for growing dates—fierce heat, access to water, and dry weather during harvest in late summer and autumn. They planted seeds from imported dates, but these seedling trees mostly bore inferior fruits; only after plant explorers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private nurseries brought back offshoots of superior varieties from the Middle East, in 1900 and over the next two decades, did commercial cultivation begin.