Nurse Palm

Explanation: Sprouting from a large, old, mature, fallen trunk is this date palm, here on the lovely grounds of a hotel in Tunisia, North Africa.

Date palms can be grown from seeds, but commercial enterprises prefer cuttings from cultivars. And here we see the reason: date palms can serve as "nurse tree" substrates from which viable sprouts can readily emerge. Studies have shown how date palm clones of bud clusters can form from juvenile leaves.

Their ability to produce shoot regeneration has been studied and used for propagation methods in date palm cultivations, producing the luscious and tasty date treats.

We have previously encountered "nurse tree" and other "nurse" conditions elsewhere, showing how some tree species can take advantage of surfaces and substrates for sprouting, such as with nurse logs in the Congo, nurse stumps in America, nurse termite mounds in Malawi, and even nurse boulders in Chile! So next time you are in the forest -- anywhere! -- don't just take trees for granted; look again, to see what their birth substrate might be.

Information:
     DeMason, D.A., and K.N.C. Sekhar. 1988. The breeding system in the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) and its recognition by early cultivators. Advances in Economic Botany 6:20-35. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43927515.
     Fki, L, N. Bouaziz, W. Kriaa, R. Benjamaa-Masmoudi, R. Gargouri-Bouzid, A. Rival, and N. Drira. 2011. Multiple bud cultures of ‘Barhee’ date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and physiological status of regenerated plants. Journal of Plant Physiology 168(14):1694-1700. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jplph.2011.03.013.
     Shahrour, W.G., M.A. Shatnawi, R.A. Shibli, M. Al-Alawi, S.M. Abubaker, M. Majdalawi, and A.K. Alkawaldeh. 2024. Callus induction, shoot regeneration, and conservation of in vitro grown date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). Brazilian Journal of Biology 84:e284231. doi: 10.1590/1519-6984.284231.

EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week