Didaskalia De nobili dicto Davidis

X.
The Palm has a crown of leaves spread around its summit, with branches extended like fingers; and its fruits, because they are similar to fingers, are called palmulae little palms or dactyli dates/fingers.

A righteous man, stretching forth pure and supplicating palms to God, conceives prayers through faith and adores God the Father in Spirit and in truth, not ignorant of the sentiment of the couplet by Gregory Nazianzen:
"The best work of hands is to always lift pure ones to heaven, and to offer them to divine laws."
Or, to apply them promptly and skillfully to the performing of divine laws.

XI.
"Of the urban species," says Ruellius (repeating the sentiments of Theophrastus, Pliny, and Dioscorides), "the Olive, Palm, Laurel, Myrtle, Cypress (a species of pine), and Rhododendron flourish with perpetual foliage."

The same is said of righteous men, who flourish with constant honor, as these sayings testify:
"But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever" (Ps. 52:8).
"The righteous shall germinate like a Palm... They shall also germinate in old age, they shall be fat and green" (Ps. 92:12, 14).
"I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree, etc." (Is. 41:19). Thus he allegorically calls the most excellent men in the Church.
"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (Is. 55:13). That is, with harmful and wicked men divinely uprooted and removed, there shall be substituted healthy and useful instruments of the Church, for the praise of Jehovah and as an eternal sign and monument of His beneficence.