Who’d have thought it? juice from the fruit of the date palm Phoenix dactylifera inhibits corrosion of aluminium alloy in salt water.

Dates, the sticky, sweet fruits of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), are the product of sexual reproduction in that plant and borne on the female plants of this dioecious species. Globally, about 15 million metric tonnes of dates are produced annually from 100 million date palm trees and represent a staple food in many Middle [...]

Dioecy has evolved independently several times during the evolution of flowering plants, but knowledge of the mechanisms involved is poor. Phoenix dactylifera is a dioecious species displaying strong dimorphism between pistillate and staminate flowers, and Daher et al. (pp. 255–266) describe the transition of reproductive buds from a bisexual to a unisexual stage. They find [...]