Alan Davidson

Doum Palm

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

doum palm Hyphaene thebaica, a native of Egypt. The Revd John Montgomery (1872), viewing it from a British standpoint, said that it ‘produces a fruit, the thick, brown, mealy rind of which has a remarkable resemblance to gingerbread’. This is confirmed by Corner (1966), who also remarks that elephants enjoy the fruits.

© the Estate of Alan Davidson 1999, 2006, 2014 © in the Editor’s contribution to the second and third editions, Oxford University Press 2006, 2014.