Coconut palms on Socotra Island

[JohnInBhutan]

Socotra Island, off the coast of Somalia and Yemen, but part of Yemen has no indigenous palms. Phoenix dactilifera have been cultivated there for at least 1000 years, since human settlement of Socotra (only 50,000 people live on Socotra, an island about 80 miles long and 40 miles wide). P. dactilifera are cultivated and numerous around all the villages. Only other palm I've ever seen is Cocos nucifera and only a handful of these. On my last visit my friend Marwan (in photo) who knows of my interest in palms took me to family plot where these coconuts growing. Story he told me was that 30 years ago someone told his grandfather this could be good cash crop, so they planted about half acre in coconuts, the area near the sea, but more important near a river. The trees grew, but no one in Socotra interested in eating them, so the family consumes some, most just fall and sprout. The only coconut plantation on Socotra. Everywhere you see P. dactilifera (also pictured) and in the mountains of central Socotra the dragon blood tree, Dracaena cinnabari, which is endemic (last picture).