Shabbos 45 - Dekel (Palm)
Today’s daf mentions palm trees during a discussion of lamps on shabbos and yom tov. If you place your burning lamp in a palm tree, you might reach for it and accidentally break off, and therefore reap, a branch (kotzer). On shabbos when the lamp is muktzeh you won’t be inclined to touch it anyway, but on yom tov it’s not muktzeh and you might be inclined to touch it. So you can put burning lamps in trees on shabbos but not on yom tov (although personally I would be more concerned about burning the tree down than breaking off a branch?)
https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.45a.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
Palms are a whole family (Arecaeae) of 2600 known species (and probably more unknown species) in tropical and subtropical climates. They’re mostly characterized by their leaves. Not all of them are trees - some are shrubs, and some are vines called climbers, with leaves that grow along the stem instead of on top! One, nypoideae, grows in mangroves. Coconuts are also part of the palm family. I’ll never know which species the rabbis were talking about, so let’s find one from their part of the world.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48867-Arecaceae
The date palm, Phoenix Dactylifera, is an Arecaceae family member that most likely originated somewhere between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and is found most commonly in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. They’re 69-75ft tall! And they’ve been cultivated for a long time.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/78555-Phoenix-dactylifera
(Picture from iNaturalist observer fragmansapir, October 2019)