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Hyphaene thebaica
Also called Gingerbread Palm, Egyptian Doum Palm, Dum, Gingerbread Tree
Doum palm is a dioecious fan palm of hot, dry regions of Africa and Arabia, grown mainly for shade, leaves and fruit. It needs full sun and tolerates drought, but grows best where groundwater is available.
Hyphaene thebaica, with common names doum palm (Arabic: دوم) and gingerbread tree (also mistakenly doom palm), is a type of palm tree with edible oval fruit. It is native to the Arabian Peninsula and also to the northern half and western part of Africa where it is widely distributed and tends to grow in places where groundwater is present.
The doum palm is native to the northern half of Africa. It is widespread in the Sahel and grows from Mauritania and Senegal in the west, through Central Africa, and east to Egypt, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. It tends to grow in areas where groundwater is present and is found along the Nile River in Egypt and Sudan, in riverine areas of northwestern Kenya, and along the Niger River in West Africa. It is also native to the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula (Palestine, Sinai, Yemen and Saudi Arabia) and is reportedly naturalized in the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean. It grows in wadis and at oases, but sometimes occurs away from water and on rocky hillsides. It dislikes waterlogged soils and is very resistant to destruction by bushfires.
The doum palm flourishes in hot dry regions where little else grows and the tree is appreciated for the shade it provides. All parts of the tree are useful, but probably the most important product is the leaves. The fibre and leaflets are used by people along the Niger and Nile Rivers to weave baskets, such as in the material culture of the Manasir, mats, coarse textiles, brooms, ropes, string and thatch. The timber is used for posts and poles, furniture manufacture and beehives, and the tree provides wood for fuel. The leaf stalks are used for fencing and the fibre is used for textiles. Other products include fishing rafts, brooms, hammocks, carpets, buttons and beads.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hyphaene thebaica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
