Blooming on the Judean Desert hills

Published: MAY 14, 2020 14:36

A stroll on the security road that faces Jerusalem reveals a treasure trove of wild flowers that dazzle with their amazing colors and scientific facts.

Ma’aleh Adumim, about 7 km. west of Jerusalem and home to some 40,000 residents, is a huge botanical garden, representative of the flora that blooms in the spring on the hills of the Judean Desert.

A stroll on the security road that faces Jerusalem reveals a treasure trove of wild flowers that dazzle with their amazing colors and scientific facts. There you will find toxic plants, trees mentioned in the Bible and rare flowers.

Among the toxic plants and trees are the Golden henbane, with yellow and purple flowers, which contains alkaloids; and the 1.8-meter tobacco tree, which grows in undisturbed habitats, whose beauty is deceiving. According to experts, all its parts are poisonous, if consumed. It has yellow tubular flowers, about 5 cm. long, and its leaves are thick.

Abundant on the hills of Ma’aleh Adumim is Tournefort’s gundelia, a tumbleweed measuring 30 cm. to 50 cm. tall, with spiny leaves and a brownish flowering head. The plant is not much to look at, but it has an unusual place in Judaism. Scholars believe it’s mentioned in the books of Psalms and Isaiah.

Common also on the hills is the crown anemone, mentioned in the New Testament, whose red flowers open in the morning and close at night, which stands out in the greenery of the Judean Desert in the spring.

Measuring about 50 cm. tall, the cotton thistle, not the most attractive plant in the world, but certainly one of the most unusual ones, turns from a spiky green ball into purple “hairs” that resemble a man’s close haircut.

Another plant that doesn’t get its proper due is the wild cucumber, known also as the exploding cucumber, important enough to be mentioned in several ancient Jewish and non-Jewish texts. Its flower is a visual delight not too common in the desert.

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When it comes to beauty and exoticism, few can beat the splendid bindweed, with its pink flowers, and the salvia dominica, with its toothlike flowers.

A note about wildflowers couldn’t be complete without mentioning the ubiquitous crown daisy, a yellow flower that grows even in cement cracks, and the slender oat, a fragile plant that paints the fields with its golden hues.

Three sites will guide you through the flora of Israel. The first, flowersinisrael.com, lists thousands of flowers and bushes in alphabetical order by their Latin, English, Hebrew and Arabic names, and allows you to find them by color, families and blooming month. For some species it includes the botanical origin of the name and the classic texts where they are mentioned.

Equally impressive is wildflowers.co.il, published in Hebrew and English by the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. It lists thousands of flowers in alphabetical order by their Latin name, and classifies them as toxic, biblical, medicinal or allergenic. Each plant is accompanied by a photo and described in detail, and where it grows in Israel.

A shared initiative of the late Hebrew University professor Avinoam Danin and his son Barak Danin is , published in both English and Hebrew, and run in cooperation with the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. It has a database of thousands of flowers, and, like the other two sites, it includes the Latin and English names of the plants and their distribution in Israel.