Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus, Vol. 2

...the grove being produced spontaneously, and several around each one lean toward it with more inviting foliage, while it, bristling with erect ones, fertilizes the others by its breath, its very sight, and even its dust. If this tree is cut down, the widowed females become barren. And so great is the understanding of [the principle of] Venus that copulation has even been devised by man, using the flower and down from the males, or sometimes merely by sprinkling the dust onto the females. Palms are also planted by the trunk, two cubits in length, divided by fissures from the very brain of the tree—which is green—and buried. It is also grown from the root when torn away, and from the tenderest of branches. In Assyria, the tree itself, when laid on damp ground, takes root entirely, but into shrubs, not into a tree. Therefore, they establish nurseries, transplanting them at one year old, and again at two years old. For they delight in a change of location, in spring elsewhere, but in Assyria around the rising of the Dog Star. They do not touch the young ones there with iron, but bind up the foliage so that they grow in height. They prune the robust ones for the sake of thickness, leaving branches half a foot long, which, if cut elsewhere, would kill the mother. We have said that they love soil that is salted. Therefore, where there is no such soil, they sprinkle salt, not at the roots, but a little further away. Some in Syria and Egypt divide themselves into two trunks; in Crete, into three; some even into five. They bear fruit immediately in their third year. In Cyprus, however, and in Syria and Egypt, some bear in their fourth year, others in their fifth, when at the height of a man, having no wood in the fruit as long as they are young, and for this reason, they receive the name of eunuchs. There are many kinds of them: Assyria and the whole of Persia use the sterile ones for building materials and the more elegant works. There are also coppiced palm forests, which sprout again from the root once cut down. The sweet...