**2. Botanical description**

The doum palm is a dioecious palm and grows up to 17 m (56 ft) high. The trunk, which can have a girth of up to 90 cm (35 in), the trunk divided into two branches, each branch divided again into two branches, and the ends of the branches contain tufts of large leaves. The bark is smooth, dark gray and contains the scars of fallen leaves. The petioles are about 1 m long, sheathing the branch at the base and contain curved claws. The leaves are fan-shaped and measure about 120 by 180 cm (47 by 71 in) (**Figure 1**). Male and female flowers are produced on separate trees. The inflorescences are similar in general appearance, up to about 1.2 m (3 ft. 11 in) long, irregular in the branching and have two or three spikes in each branch. Male flowers have a short-stalk, solitary in pits of the spadix, spathe-bracts encircling the spadix, pointed. Branches of female spadices become thicker in the fruiting stage. Woody fruits are produced in the female palm that continues on the tree for a long time. They are 6–10 × 6–8 cm, smooth, rectangular to cubical with rounded edges, shiny brown when ripe. Its fresh weight is about 120 g and dry weight is about 60 g and each one containing a single seed. The size of seeds about 2–3.5 × 3 cm, the color is ivory, truncate at the base and the apex is obtuse [4].

**Figure 1.** *Hyphaene thebaica* L. (Doum).
