The date palm

The date palm is a wonderful tree. People eat dates. They feed them to their animals. They use the leaves and wood to build houses. They use the wood to build boats. They make baskets from the leaves. They burn the other part of the tree so they can cook food.

The date palm came from the Middle East. Seven thousand years ago, people in Syria and Egypt ate dates. They made picture of date palms on their stone buildings. Today date palms grow in the Middle East, part of Asia and Africa, southern Europe, and other warm part of the world.

There are more than twenty-seven hundred kind of palms trees. Most of them cannot grow in the Middle East because it is to dry. The date palms grow there very well.

Hundreds of years ago people in Europe and Arab country made pictures of palm trees and palm flowers on some of their building. Today we can see these pictures in art museums. People think that the palm tree is beautiful. People thought the same thing a long time ago.