It's tall.

It's distinctive.

.it's like the
palm of your hand,

radiates out from a
central point.

It's graceful.

It's popular.

These are vicious spines.

And parts of it
are delicious.

Funding for
The Desert Speaks

was provided by
Desert Program Partners,

representing concerned viewers
making a financial commitment

to the education about and
preservation of deserts.

And by the
Stonewall Foundation.

♪ music ♪

The palm tree has long
been a symbol of deserts

and the oases that
made them inhabitable.

For desert dwellers a palm
tree was an indicator of water,

a source of shade
and most important a

provider of dates,
a basic food.

The date palm arrived in
the southwestern United

States about 100 years
ago from the Middle East.

The desert fan palm has been
around for millions of years.

The Coachella Valley at
the edge of the Sonoran

Desert is the lowest and
hottest inhabited place

in the western hemisphere.

It is also the place to
see and learn about palms.

In the southwestern United
States the desert fan palm

isthemost planted
landscaping tree so it's,

it's done rather well.

If you look in the
Coachella Valley there are

tens of thousands of 'em
planted and that makes

perfect ecological sense
because that's where the

desert fan palm originated
and its in it's home so

Palm Springs is
appropriately named.

The world's expert on
desert fan palms is my

friend and Palm Springs
resident Jim Cornett.

Where did these fan
palms come from?

Were they looted?

Most of them came from
some of the original oases

that were here around the
turn of the last century

around 1900 and some of
them were pulled out of the

oases and planted on the
main boulevard in Palm Springs.

But they put in a lot of
new young palms now to

replace some of the older
ones that have died.

But they are really, they,
they're the authentic

palm for which Palm
Springs is named.

This is desert fan palms,
the same palms we've seen

in the wild oases.

So Palm Springs is famous
for more than just palms?

Yeah, it's famous for all
the Hollywood celebrities

that either had full time
homes here or part time homes,

Phyllis Diller,
Bob Hope.

Bob Hope.

Do your children know
who Bob Hope was?

My children know
who Bob Hope was.

They do that.

Your grandchildren
probably won't.

Ginger Rogers.

I have no idea
who that is.

Well, that shows
how you're,

you're just one of the
younger generation.

I guess.

And she wasn't married
to Roy Rogers either.

That's good to know.

She was in the theater.

Good to know.

The desert fan palm is
responsible for a lot of

place names in
southeastern California.

Of course there's Palm
Springs but then there's

29 Palms, Thousand Palms,
Desert Palms, Palm Oasis.

All this is a tribute to
washingtonia filifera,

the desert fan palm.

The Palm Canyon area,
which is the largest

undisturbed palm
oasis on Planet Earth,

is being managed by the
Agua Caliente band of

Cahuilla Indians and it's
been land in their tribe

for actually over a couple
thousand years because

that's how long
they've been here.

There are 2,511 trees
here and there's no other

desert with an oasis
that has as many trees

as does this canyon.

It's shadowy, it's much
cooler down here than

it was up there.

It really is.

We're surrounded by hot,
dry desert and now we're

in an environment that's
25 degrees cooler than the

surrounding desert, 25
degrees cooler when we're

in them middle
of the oasis.

So how do you tell the
difference between a

date palm and a
desert fan palm?

Well, the easiest way to
tell is by looking at the

leaf because the desert
fan palm has what we call

a palmate leaf.

It's like the
palm of your hand,

radiates out from a
central point here.

And you could
use it as a fan.

Yes, a very good fan.

And it's huge.

So the date palms
they would come out

like a feather, a
long thing with.

Feather of a bird
and it's what we

call a penately
compound leaf.

It has all little leaflets
coming off of the entire

stem of the leaf.

One of the things that's
quite distinctive about

the desert fan palm are
these threads that

peel off on the edges.

The Indians would use
these threads sometimes

to make baskets.

It makes a great sound.

Hey, listen, can you imagine
40 Native Americans

all at the same
time ripping those off.

What music to my ears.

We call that a party.

Is that right?

Great sound.

Nice.

Yeah.

The Cahuilla Indians,
the native people to this

region, have lived in and
around the palm oases for

at least 3,000 years and
they have been managing

these oases since that time.

They have been
collected fruits,

they've been grinding the
palm fruits in bedrock mortars.

So you sit like this, huh?

Yeah, just like that.

Straddle it.

Get the pestle.

And when you get tired of
grinding you look up and

look at the palms out
there and you think of how

cool it is down there
and you get back to work.

And they've occupied this
area right up until

the present time.

Although today of course
it's quite a tourist

attraction with over 200,000

tourists visiting the
canyons every single year.

Well, boy, this is
an impressive grove.

It is.

The locals call this The
Cathedral because it's

so elevated and so
quiet in here.

And it's dark, it has
a mystical feel to it.

Right in the middle of
it the sun never hits the

ground even in the summer.

We're in the Colorado
Desert, the hottest,

driest subdivision of
the Sonoran Desert and,

and yet we have over
2,000 palm trees here.

Now the reason for that is
there's a fault called the

Palm Canyon Fault, which
is an offshoot of the

San Andreas Fault, that has
created the canyon and

then that fault is at
the base of the steepest

mountains in all
of North America,

the northern edge of the
San Jacinto Mountains.

So the mountains collect
an incredible amount of

water when storms come
through and a lot of that

water runs down these
canyons year round

providing an abundance
of water in an otherwise

very, very dry environment.

Man, we've got
water in the desert.

That's a little bit unusual.

To say the least
it's not expected.

They can go a few months
without water but in

general for palms to be
healthy and do well they

require permanently
moist soil.

That shows you that at
least recent history this

has been a
well-watered canyon.

Yes, definitely.

Well, here's a
weird looking guy.

This is not a tall,
straight palm.

Not this one.

This one has been
alternately trying to get

more sunlight by growing
away from the other palms

and then it's also,
in decades past,

was undercut by floods
that came through here and

that resulted in it
tilting even further.

And so it took away part
of its support here and

it started to go that way.

Yeah, started to lean.

And now it's trying
to grow back up again.

So they all want to
grow toward the sun

to get sun no matter what.

Yep.

The desert fan palm,
known to botanists as

washingtonia filifera,
named after our first

president, is the only
palm native to the western

United States and it's the
largest palm in terms of

mass of weight anywhere
in North America.

Well, this grove's got
a lot of bare trunks.

It's result of a fire that
came through here in 1980

and burned all the dead
leaves off the trunks and

now we can see the, the
bark or what I should

call the pseudo-bark.

So they don't really have
a bark then, do they?

No, and we call it a
pseudo-bark cause it looks

like bark, you touch it
and it feels like bark but

it's really something else.

It's the, the base of leaf
stems is what we're seeing

and each ridge is one
group of leaves that grew

at the crown of the palm.

So they leave that scar.

Yeah.

It's the most tolerant
palm in terms of cold

weather, it can tolerate
temperatures well below

freezing for many hours
and occasionally that

happens, although
less so these days.

And it's also the only
palm tree in the world

who's dead leaves adhere
to the trunk throughout

the life of the palm.

So these palms don't
propagate through pups or

offshoots or shoots
or anything like that.

No, they germinate from
seeds and start from

seeds like, like these here.

This is a coyote scat and
in the coyote scat there

are all these seeds
of the, the palm.

So the fruits fall
from the tree,

coyotes eat the fruits to
get the sweet flesh that's

around it and then they
void out the seeds intact

in their droppings and
then these will germinate

very readily after they've
gone through the coyote.

They grow very fast.

In certain conditions they
can put on two feet of

woody trunk each year and
they grow very rapidly up

until about 20 feet and at
that height they'll start

producing flowers first
of course and then fruit.

They can then continue
living for up to 150 years

but the average lifespan
of a desert fan palm is

about 90 to 100 years, so
about the same as a human.

These may be fan palms
but these would not make

a very nice handle.

These are vicious
spines on here.

They're pretty wicked.

If we go back
10,000 years ago,

mammoths would visit the
oases and the palms had

these spines on their
petials which kept the

mammoth from eating the
growing tip, that's how

they defended themselves
against hungry herbivores.

They are vicious.

The good news is that
desert fan palms are

thriving like they
never have before.

A part of that we believe
is because of global warming.

It's a little bit warmer
now and the palms have

tropical affinities.

They love warm weather.

A lot of insects live
in the palm oases.

In fact one of the most
common one is the Apache cicada.

This isn't the cicada itself,
this is it's exoskeleton.

The palms are so bottom
heavy that a healthy palm

will never be blown over
by the wind because of

this mass of thousands and
thousands of roots that

totally occupy the soil
making the palm heaviest

on the bottom and lightest
actually on the top.

The other thing that's
interesting about the

roots is they're so dense
and there are so many of

them that it crowds out
the root structure of any

other plant species and
that's another reason that

the palms are such
good competitors,

cause no other plant can
find space to grow around

them because of this
dense mass of roots.

The desert fan palm
has survived on its own

through everything that
changing climates

could throw at it.

The date palms in the
United States, however,

require constant
human attention.

A few families have been
responsible for their

commercial success in
the Coachella Valley.

All the ladies here would
earn a little extra money

in the fall when they
would have the dates to grade.

Uh huh.

So, no matter
what you did,

you had to go grade
dates in the fall.

Uh huh.

So it's seasonal work.

Oh, yes, uh huh.

You were married
to my Uncle Kenny.

Correct.

Who was the grandson
of William Paul.

Right.

And you're the
great grandson.

And I'm the great
grandson, one of them.

When my great grandfather
showed up on this piece of

land it was all sand dunes
and mesquite and brush,

just pretty adventurous
pioneer types imported

dates from Algeria,
Morocco and Northern Africa.

They had to go through a
lot to turn this into any

kind of agricultural
production.

This isn't the fertile
mid-West we're looking at here.

The U.S. government had done
some studies in various areas

in Arizona and southern
California here.

They thought the Coachella
Valley would be a great

place to grow dates.

It had a very similar
soil type and climate and

plenty of water
in its aquifer.

Great grandfather used
to say that palms need to

have their heads in the
sun and their feet in the water.

So this was a place that
palms could do that

and you could grow dates.

In those days everybody
was a visionary.

Your grandfather I think
recognized the fact that there

was money to be made but only
if you got a large planting.

You knew gotta sell it.

He was good at that.

As the fortunes of some
families declined the

fortunes of other
families increased.

For years I've passed
places out here in the hot

desert that said "date
shakes" and I never

had the guts to try one.

I suppose that an elegant
person would use a spoon.

Mm.

Thank you dates.

The tastiest kind of date
I'm told is called the

medjool and this tree has
some and the only way to do it

here is the old-fashioned
way, on a ladder.

So it takes awhile to get up but
I'm told that it's worth it.

The medjools are supposed
to be very sweet and I

hate to disrupt anybody's
insect protection but I

gotta move this to
get to the medjools.

There's one.

Now, oh, it's very sweet.

This is as good a date as
you'll ever get and you

know it's organic,
fresh from the tree.

It gives you courage,
strength and if you start

oscillating on the ladder
you just need another date.

This is the old way.

How much water do your
trees in here use?

They usually use about
8 acre feet per year per acre.

Now that's a lot more than.

My dad came here in 1912.

He started the date
orchard here soon after that.

In those years cotton was
the big crop and onions

and things like
that, and vegetables.

But, and gradually
they got into dates.

Like the medjools, you know,
they first came in and

farmers would get a small
number of trees.

As they produced offshoots,

they should plant those and it
would build up from there.

How much rainfall
do they get here?

I mean, this is a
very dry place, right?

We get, our average
rainfall here is about

3 inches per year.

I see, so basically it's all
coming from, from irrigation.

From irrigation.

Part of it is well water
and part of it is from

the Colorado River.

That production though
from that 8 acre feet,

that's all food.

That's all food and there is,
per acre you should

get well over 10,000
pounds per, per acre.

10,000 pounds of
dates per acre?

Of dates per acre.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty
good production.

That's, that's a lot of,
that's a lot of food.

We usually start harvest
right after Labor Day and

then we're just
finishing right now,

which is the latter
part of October.

This is normal.

Some varieties it takes
longer for them to mature.

They go all over
the country.

Quite a lot of them
are exported to Europe.

A lot depends on the
Muslim population because

they are big date eaters.

Most of the Americans
don't come from a country,

from areas that, where
they are used to eating dates.

Up on the drying racks
we see another reason why

dates seem to do
particularly well here

in the heat of the
Coachella Valley.

Dates need hot weather
to grow, they need hot,

dry weather to dry to the
perfect moisture content.

And these will keep for a
long time when the sun

has done it's thing.

♪ music ♪

How many dates
pass through your

operation here a year?

Oh, about a million pounds
through this operation and

another million pounds
through our other packing house.

A million pounds.

That, that's a
lot of tonnage.

That's a lot of tonnage.

Now, where are these
dates mostly going?

Oh, they'll go
over the world.

Some will go to New
Zealand, Australia,

some will go to the various
different European countries,

a lot here domestically in
the U.S. as well.

We take pride in making
sure that we have good

quality dates and in order
to do that you really have

to grow 'em yourself.

You really have to take care.

To have the control over 'em.

To have the control
over all your,

your, your quality from
the growing all the way on

through the packing and
the boxing up of the fruit.

Well, I, I have to
confess to you that I,

I stole a couple
of the dates from,

I climbed up a ladder and
I was glad I did because

that represents at least
25% of the dates I've

eaten in my life.

They were very good.

Didn't eat that many
dates in your life, huh?

That's right.

I'm, I'm gonna
eat more now.

They were great.

And what are the
different types of dates.

You've told me
about the medjools.

What other ones do you have?

Well, another good quality
one is the deglet noor.

But there's many more.

Hidis, there's barhee dates.

The barhee is a unique one
in that a lot of people

like to eat it in a
kind of an unripe state.

But there's 60, 70,
80 varieties of dates.

There's a lot of dates
throughout the world.

Why is it that dates don't
seem to be real big and real

high on the Americans' list
of favorite foods?

I think it's because we grew up
not being familiar with them.

A lot of countries like,
particularly the Middle

East cause that's where
they originated from,

dates are a common
everyday diet.

Here it hasn't
been that way.

It was always, your Aunt
Nellie's date nut bread or

something like that that
you had dates in rather than.

And that you had to
eat it whether you

wanted it or not.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

But when you, when you try
these, the medjool date,

which is a very,
like I said,

a very creamy
premium date,

it tastes a lot different
than a lot of the other

dates that we've been used
to and a lot of people

that have not liked dates
I've convinced to like em

just by trying
that variety.

Yeah, Jim, it strikes me
that we've got a natural

cycle here that the dates
originated in the Middle East,

the plants came here,

the production is here and
a lot of it goes back to

people who are Middle
Eastern origin.

Is that correct?

Well, yes, a lot
of the trees,

all the trees technically
came from the Middle East

at one point or another.

The medjool is unique in
that it came from Morocco,

part of the Middle East,
it was wiped out by a

soil-born disease
there, came here,

was quarantined
and grown here,

now all the medjools
originate from here.

Some have gone back to
like Israel and some other

sections of the Middle
East but now the big

medjool production
is here in the U.S.

Commercial date palms
require irrigation.

The native desert fan
palms grow wild only where

water occurs naturally,
in some cases courtesy

of geological faults.

We can generally classify
palm oases into two types.

There are canyon oases,
then there are fault line

oases, well, oases
associated with the

San Andreas Fault.

Once we get into very deep
alluvial soils whatever

water is running on the
surface or even beneath

the surface sinks so far
down that the palm roots

can't get it anymore.

Whenever you can see the
palms you know that there

is water you can
maybe dig to?

Dig to, yeah.

You know there's water
at or near the surface,

probably so close that you could
reach it with a shovel.

I'm looking out and
looking north here across

the Coachella Valley
and the Fault is where?

Well, we're, we're driving
north along the Palm

Canyon Fault and 10 miles
north from here the Palm

Canyon Fault runs smack
into the San Andreas Fault.

So it's like a "T"?

Yes.

When we were up in the
Palm Canyon we'd see palms

but they're down in the
bottom of the canyon in water.

Right.

And here they're on this
arid, arid hillside.

So what's going on?

Well, we're walking along
the San Andreas Fault and

in this particular area
how water reaches the

palms is a little bit
different than where we were.

Where is the
water coming from?

I mean, this is
very dry country.

What happens is, to the
north of us are some

mountains, the little San
Bernardino Mountains in

Joshua Tree National Park
and when it rains and

snows up there the water
sinks into the soil and

runs underground to the
lowest point in the area,

which is the bottom of
the Coachella Valley.

But water never reaches
there because as it comes

underground it hits the fault.

Boom.

And that Fault is moving
back and grinding against

each other and it has
ground up the soil so fine

that the water can't
get through it.

It can't get by the Fault.

It can't get by the Fault
and so it's dammed up

underground and eventually
it rises to the surface,

which provides all the
water the palms need.

So, we are now crossing
the San Andreas Fault,

you guarantee me.

Right.

We're standing right now
on the Pacific Plate and

now we're gonna jump across to
the North American Plate.

And it's not dangerous?

Unless there's an earthquake.

All right.

On three.

One, two, three.

We made it.

Ahh.

And this is what
underground blocks the flow

of water from the north to
the south across the Fault.

It can't get through this when
it's tightly packed together.

There are no spaces in
between the soil particles

and so this is the dam.

So water's gotta go somewhere.

Yeah, it wants to go
downhill but it can't

go any further
than the Fault.

And so we have palms.

Fire sometimes is thought
to be a hazard to palm oases

but it's not.

The palms thrive
in a fire regime.

In fact in our studies
we found that the more

frequent the fire the more
rapidly palms colonize and area.

These are the fruits
of the desert fan palm.

They're pretty tasty and
I've collected quite a few

of them cause I thought
you might want to try them.

They've been pasteurized.

Pasteurized.

Well, all right, I
trust you so much, Jim.

Okay.

Oh, hard seed.

Yeah, don't bite.

I forgot to tell you that.

Thanks.

Don't bite into the seed.

Tastes like a micro-date.

However, I will
confess, they are sweet.

You're probably right.

They've quite good.

It's easy to be
pessimistic about the

future of many of the
world's deserts and the

plants and animals
that live there.

But the reverse is the
case with the desert fan palm.

It's populations are healthy,
it's numbers are

increasing and it's
distribution is expanding.

And while global climate
change is placing stress

on many organisms, the
desert fan palm is happy.

For thousands of years
the desert in the shadows

of the towering Andes of
northwestern Peru has been

a strategic crossroads
for imperial trade.

Advanced pre-Incan
cultures left behind

hand-carved mountaintop canals.

Well, almost 10,000 years.

In fact, there are caves.

Ancient burial sites and

monuments now overwhelmed
by encroaching cities.

El Cuarto del Rescate.

Next time onThe Desert Speaks

One of the interesting
things about the spines is

that we found that if you
examine the leaf stems of

a palm that's 26 feet
in height there are no spines.

They're completely gone.

And. They don't
need em up there?

They don't need
em up there.

We wondered why they
stopped producing them at

that height and what we
found out was that the

highest that the Emperial
mammoth could reach with

its trunk when it was
on its tippy toes was 24 feet.

Funding for
The Desert Speaks

was provided by
Desert Program Partners,

representing concerned viewers
making a financial commitment

to the education about and
preservation of deserts.

And by the
Stonewall Foundation.

Copies of the Desert
Speaks are available from KUAT.

To order, call 1-800-841-5923

and please be sure to mention
the episode number.

For more information
visitThe Desert Speaks
on-line at this address.