Nature Diary
The East African doum palm
Kamal Lodaya
Hyphaene Compressa, the East African doum palm, grows all over East Africa, in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar. It is thought that the tree came from Egypt and Arabia. The name possibly comes from Arabic dawm, which means "continuance". The picture below shows a doum palm on Mazgaon Hill in Mumbai.
Unlike most palm trees, the doum palm has a beautiful branching structure which can be seen in the picture. It is a robust tree which stands 10 to 20 meters high. It grows deep roots in salty soil in dry regions.
Every time a stem forks into two branches, this is called binary branching. Because of this, with every level of branching, its number of crowns doubles. A doum palm can branch all the way to having 32, or even 64, crowns of leaves.
The fruits of the doum palm are eaten by humans, but they are also very popular with baboons and with elephants. In English the tree is called gingerbread palm, because when eaten its fruit feels like spiced bread.
Almost all parts of the tree are useful. Unfortunately this has led to overexploitation of these trees, and they need protection.