Flowers in Israel

The winter solstice (from Latin sol (sun) + stet (standing) is the date of the shortest day, when the sun appears to be at its most southerly. Both hunter-gatherers and farming communities relied on stored food to see them through the long winters, for many cultures the return of the longer days meant that the plenty of spring was approaching and a reason to celebrate.

The ancients were certainly aware of the movement of the sun. The Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah (also Chanukkah), is also linked to the solstice, being held on the 25th Kislev, three days before the new moon closest to the solstice. The celebration commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over Antiochus Epiphanes and the rededication of the Temple.

The ancient Egyptians celebrated the rebirth of Osiris on December 21st with his symbolic burial and rebirth as an infant at midnight, the priests bringing the image of a child out of his ‘burial chamber’. The ancient Egyptians considered the palm tree to symbolize resurrection. They decorated their homes with its branches during the winter solstice.The ancient Greeks’ celebration followed the Egyptian model, with somewhat more in the way of bloodshed, a man being torn apart by women, representing the end of the harvest god Dionysos, with the promise of rebirth through the offspring of one of the women. The human sacrifice was later replaced with a goat, the women becoming mourners.Rome originally had several celebrations near this time, including the Saturnalia on 17th December. By the year 50 BCE, the festival ran until the 23rd. This was supplemented by many other feasts, including the birth of gods and demigods such as Mithras, Apollo and Hercules. These different feasts were later merged by the Emperor Aurelian into the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun (Dies Natalis Invicti Solis), celebrated on 25th December.

The Druids held rituals in their sacred groves and performed fertility rites involving mistletoe, Germanic tribes burned their Yule logs and decorated their homes with evergreens, and Scandanavians lit bonfires and held vigils.. Trees were viewed as symbolizing eternal life. The trees joined holly, mistletoe, the wassail bowl and the Yule log as symbols of the season. All predated Christianity. Many of these rituals are now associated with the ‘Christian’ festival we know as Christmas, indeed the date was chosen by the Roman church when they ‘Christianised’ the festival of Saturnalia.Saturnalia was the feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, up to 23 December. The Romans often cut down evergreens and decorated their “trees with bits of metal and replicas of their god, Bacchus [a fertility god]. They also placed 12 candles on the tree in honor of their sun god” and decorated them to pay homage to Saturn, the god of farming. The Romans also practiced many traditions similar to Christmas; though the “Christmas tree” itself is a later development in the celebration of Christmas. In the Roman calendar the Winter Solstice fell in this period; in imperial times that event was celebrated in honour of Sol Invictus and put on 25 December by emperor Aurelian in 274, so after the Saturnalia.

There is one theory that says that the Aleppo pine is the original Christmas tree. The Aleppo pine, also known as Jerusalem pine, is native to the Mediterranean region. It is a small to medium-size tree, reaching 15-25 m tall. The leaves (‘needles’) are in pairs, very slender, mostly 6-10 cm long, The cones are narrow conic, 5-10 cm long and 2-3 cm broad at the base when closed, green at first, ripening glossy red-brown when 24 months old.

Merry ChristmasVrolijk kerstfeest

חג שמח

Many scholars identify the jujube as the biblical atad, mentioned in the “Parable of the trees” in the book of Judges (Judges 9:15) known as Jotham’s Parable (Hebrew: משל יותם), an allegorical story against the monarchy in recent years told on Tu B’shvat as a children’s tale. Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon and the only one left living besides Abimelech, escapes to Mount Gerizim, near Shechem and tells what has come to be known as Jotham’s Parable (Judges 9: 7-21), the story of “the trees who went forth to anoint a king over them.” The trees first appeal to the olive, ‘Be our king’ the latter refuses to be a king, asking, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’ The fig also refused, saying, “Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit to wave over the trees?” Likewise the vine: “Shall I leave my new wine which cheers God and men to wave over you?” Finally all the trees said to the Jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi, Hebrew: Atad, אטד), ‘Come and be our king’ and the Jujube, with nothing to offer but its shadow, agrees to reign, but not without making a thinly-veiled threat: ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the Jujube (Atad) and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’ Judg. 9:15).

The olive, fig, vine and jujube in the parable stand for different kinds of people. The good fruits are symbols of good works. The jujube is the type of someone who does not do good uses or only does them for show and for selfish gain. The olive, fig and vine are modest and wish only to serve, but selfishness loves to rule and to be served. Fire coming out of the jujube means the burning of selfish desires. The cedar which the fire destroys stands for rational understanding. Someone who is proud or angry cannot be wise.

Yotam, the teller of the parable, is using the metaphor of the the atad to ridicule his older brother, Abimelech, who has unjustly annointed himself king, surrounded himself with yesmen and murdered all his brothers save for Yotam.

The jujube tree is common in Samaria. It can grow very large, easily providing shade for these small trees. The wild jujube growing in Israel is apparently of Sudanian origin. It is a broad-crowned, spiny tree with intertwined branches that reach nearly to ground level. Its leaves are smooth and ovate. The yellowish fruits are round in shape. They are edible, not unusual tasty and it is very much the poor relative of the olive, fig and vine, mentioned in the parable. In the past jujube fruits were commonly sold in the marketplace. In the Arava Valley, the tree is usually evergreen, but in the north it is deciduous and loses its leaves in the cold winter. The jujube grows in wet desert habitats and in riverbeds with deep soil that can store water throughout the summer. In the region between Hatzeva and Jericho, jujube is the second most common tree, after the acacia.

Its wide spreading root-system is well-known for leaching all nourishments from the soil. A farmer who wants his orchard to succeed must first uproot every jujube in the area, small saplings as well as full-grown trees. Ziziphus spina-christi is one of several candidates for Jesus’ crown of thorns, hence its name: “They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him” (Mark 15:17).

“And the two doors [of theTemple] were of cypress wood” (1 Kings 6:34)

The Phoenicians who acted as intermediaries on the Cypress’ journey from the Himalayas carried with it the association of eternal life, at odds with the death association. They planted the tree in Cyprus from whence it or the island got its name. A description of the site of origin of Cupressus was provided as well by the Roman philosopher Plinius: “cypress trees sprout spontaneously on Mt. Ida on the island of Crete, whenever the soil there is disturbed”.
The species was sometimes separated into two varieties, the pyramidalis, which has a columnar or narrowly conical shape, and the horizontalis in which the branches are horizontal. The species name sempervirens comes from the Latin for “evergreen”. Cupressus sempervirens bears both serotinous and nonserotinous cones. Serotinous cones are alive and can live for at least 20 years. The production of serotinous cones is one of the adaptations of conifers to frequent fires. The cypress is monoecious, having both the male and female reproductive organs in the same individual and is wind pollinated. Because the branches of the pyramidalis cypress closely hug the vertical trunk and the tree resembles a candle, it is extensively planted in and around cemeteries. In Muslim graveyards in northern Israel the Cupressus sempervirens is the leading cemetery tree. The tradition of planting cypress trees in cemeteries stems from the sacred association of these trees with the Roman god Pluto, who is the ruler of the underworld. The Egyptians associated cypress with death, and also connected cypress to the Egyptian beliefs of the afterlife. They used its fragrant wood for preservative properties, and in mummification and ascensions processes. A Byzantine legend is of cypress being one of the three symbolic trees that grow at the gates of the ‘Symbolic garden’, alongside the cedar wood tree and the pine, all said to teach us moderation.

We can read many times about the cypress or brosh in the Bible: Sa2 6:5, Kg1 5:8, Kg1 5:10, Kg1 6:15, Kg1 6:34, Kg1 9:11, etc., a lofty tree (Isa 55:13) growing on Lebanon (Isa 37:24). Its wood was used in making musical instruments and doors of houses, and for ceilings (Ch2 3:5), the decks of ships (Eze 27:5), floorings and spear-shafts (Nah 2:3). The precise kind of tree meant by a luxuriant cypress (Hos 14:8) is uncertain. Some regard it as the Cupressus sempervirens; others Pinus halepensis; while others think that the Pinus pinea is probably meant. During historical times, Cupressus sempervirens was so widely used in the East Mediterranean countries that it reached the brink of extinction. Nowadays it is planted on a large scale as an ornamental plant as a windbreak and as a forest tree. Practically, all trees found today in Israel west of the Jordan River have been planted by man. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, and the myrtle and the oil-tree (Isaiah 41:19).
The Acacia tortilis, the umbrella thorn acacia is a spiny, desert tree of Sudanian origin that grows in Israel in the hot areas of the Judean Desert and the eastern Negev along with the spiraled species (Acacia raddiana). The umbrella thorn grows to a heights between 4 to 7 metres tall in areas with annual rainfall as low as 40 mm and as much as 1200 mm, with dry seasons of 1-12 months. It has a multiple of not very straight trunks growing at an angle out of the base of the tree, which produce a foliage crown resembling an umbrella with a flattened top. The spines are in pairs, some short and hooked up to 5mm long, mixed with long straight spines. The presence of these two types of thorns distinguishes the umbrella thorn acacia from other acacias. Leaves are 1-7 cm long, with 2-14 pinnae each with 6-22 pairs of leaflets. The young branches, leaves and fruits are hairy. It flowers in April through December and the flowers are white to pale yellow, which later develop into bunches of spirally twisted, indehiscent pods (not opening spontaneously at maturity to release seeds). The pods contain several hard seeds, high in crude protein (38%) and phosphorus so very nutritious. The pods are eaten by wild and domestic animals, and sometimes by man, they have 12-19% protein content. The foliage is also palatable and provides food and shade for animals, insects live in the foliage, and insect-feeding birds build nests in its branches. The tree’s roots spread out, quite often, beyond the span of the tree’s foliage, and they follow the flow of any nearby water, sinking to about five feet beneath the ground.
The Arava acacias, as products of an arid climate, are very sensitive to any change in the flow of water in their riverbed environment. Tracks left by even one ATV can cause the death of a century-old acacia. Depending on the area in which the tree is situated, the dying process can continue for many years. A tree that does not get enough water produces increasingly fewer leaves, flowers and fruit. The animal life that depends upon the tree is then reduced accordingly, eventually resulting in the deaths of large numbers of animals.Any road-building that involves detouring the riverbed, however slightly, must be carefully engineered. Additional water-conducting channels beneath roads must be planned to avoid riverbed blockage. In the absence of these considerations, the entire landscape and ecology of the Arava could change, spelling disaster for the entire region.
The Acacia raddiana, Spiraled acacia (Hebrew: Shitah selilanit, שיטה סלילנית ) has a rather vertical trunk, out of which secondary branches grow, producing an irregular foliage crown. The Acacia raddiana flowers in Israel between June and December.

The Acacia tortillis, the Shittim from the Bible, is presumed as being the wood from which the Biblical Ark of the Tabernacle was made: “And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand” (Deuteronomy 10:3).The ark built for the Tabernacle was about 2.9 feet long. Certainly the height of these trees would not enable 220 inch planks of wood to be cut out of the trunks. So we must assume that the species of acacia trees around the Sinai desert in 1552-1551 BC were much taller than they are today.The ark was the first piece of furniture built for the Tabernacle. Shittim wood is a beautiful orange-colored wood, quite heavy and close grained. As it ages, this wood will darken. It is quite insect-resistant.

Exodus 25:10-13 “Have them make a chest of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high [That is, about 3 3/4 feet (about 1.1 meters) long and 2 1/4 feet (about 0.7 meter) wide and high]. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.”

The book of Numbers 33:49 does record that the Israelites camped along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth to Abel Shittim. “Abel Shittim” is translated “meadow of the acacias.”Shittim Acacias, also called “Abel-shittim”, is a plain or valley in the land of Moab, where the Israelites were encamped after their two victories over Sihon and Og, at the close of their desert wanderings, and from which Joshua sent forth two spies: “And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there. (Jos 2:1).Shittim is also mentioned in Hosea 5.2; Joel 3.18; and Micah 6.5).The shittah tree is mentioned only once in the Bible: Isaiah 41:19 “I will put in the desert the cedar and the shittah tree, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together.” There are only three species of Cedars in the world: the Lebanon cedar, the Deodar of the Himalayas and theMount Atlas Cedar. The Lebanon cedar is originally native to Asia Minor. This tree does not grow wild in Israel and large forests of Lebanon cedars of ancient days no longer exist. But because of its beauty and history the Lebanon cedar has been planted throughout the world. The Lebanon Cedar is a mountain tree that grows in rocky soils at heights of about 1800m. The Lebanon cedar doesn’t flower until it is 25-30 years old. The flowers or catkins are unisexual, with both male and female flowers on the same tree. The 5 cm catkins are reddish in color and the cones become 10-12 cm long and stand up straight on the branch.Over the centuries, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians made expedition to Mount Lebanon for timber or extracted tributes of wood from the coastal cities of Canaan-Phoenicia. The Phoenicians built their trade ship and military fleets from Cedar wood as well as the roofs of their temples, houses and doorsills. Kings of neighboring and distant countries asked for this wood to build their religious and civil constructs; the most famous of which are the temple of Jerusalem and David’s and Solomon’s Palaces:“So David gave orders to assemble the aliens living in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. He provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. He also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David” (Chronicles I 22:2-4). The Cedar is mentioned 75 times in the Bible, and all are included in the Old Testament -Torah.

The cedar of Lebanon is also the main tool in the oldest epic ever written by man -The Epic of Gilgamesh- a story from Mesopotamia, which dates back 4.700 years ago. The Epic of Gilgamesh’s Forest Journey tells the story of Gilgamesh’s need for timber to finish his magnificent city. He turned his attention on the forest near southern Mesopotamia, which was protected by the deity Enlil. Enlil had forecast that once humans entered the forest, they would destroy all the trees, the ‘divine beauty’. A great battle broke out between the demigod guarding the forest and the humans. Human greed won and the forest was completely stripped of its trees, leaving nothing but bare ground. The Scriptures by Ezekiel (31:1-18) illustrate beautifully how these lofty kings of the forest were used by prophet orators to symbolize and typify worldly might, power, and glory. *Thus one obtains a fair idea of the crowning insolence of Sennacherib(705BCE-681BCE), the invader, when he boasted in the year 700 B.C.: “With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest heights, the finest of its forests. Nebuchadnezzar (605BCE-562BCE) boasted on a cuneiform, inscription: “I brought for building, mighty cedars, which I cut down with my pure hands on Mount Lebanon”. Prized for its fragrance and durability, the length of the great logs made cedar wood especially desirable.The Egyptians used cedar resin for mummification, and pitch was extracted from these trees for waterproofing and caulking. In the second century CE the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76CE-138CE) attempted to protect the forest with boundary markers, most carved into living rock, others in the form of separate engraved stones. In the centuries after Hadrian, Lebanon’s trees were used extensively as fuel, especially for lime burning kilns. In the Middle Ages mountain villagers cleared forests for farmland, using the wood for fuel and construction. The Ottomans in the 19th century destroyed much of the forest cover and during World War II British troops used the wood to build railroad between Tripoli and Haifa.

In his book, “The Natural History of the Bible”, H.B.Tristam (1880) says of the cedars: “… Everyone who has seen these noble trees recognizes the force of the majestic imagery of the prophets. With their gnarled and contorted stems and scaly bark, with their massive branches, with their dark green leaves shot with silver in the sunlight, as they stand a lovely group in the stupendous mountain amphitheater, the assert their title to the monarchs of the forests”. Today the most venerable representatives of the Cedars of Lebanon, which once covered the entire country, are in the Besharre region of North Lebanon. Some 400 trees, many between 1,200 and 2,000 years old stand on slopes 2,000 meters high in the shadow of 3,100-meter peak of Qornet es-Sawda.The Lebanon Cedar is the national emblem of Lebanon, and it is seen on the Lebanese Flag.

The name Eucalyptus means “well-covered”; it describes the bud cap (technically called an operculum). This cap forms from modified petals and falls off as the flower opens.

There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia. At Ilanot, Israel is a varied arboretum with over 750 species of shrubs and trees, local and exotic, for forestry research and 170 different eucalyptus species (the largest eucalyptus concentration in Israel).One of the most widely planted eucalyptus in the world is the Eucalyptus camaldulensis, which originated in Australia. After pine, eucalyptus is the second-most popular tree for the paper industry and that there are some 130,000 square kilometers of eucalyptus forests worldwide. Eucalyptus camaldulensis is a tall, evergreen tree 24-40 m high. It has an attractive white trunk, whose bark exfoliates annually.The leaves are alternate, drooping, narrowly lanceolate, 8–22 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, often curved or sickle-shaped, tapering to long point, short-pointed at base, entire glabrous, dull pale green on both surfaces or occasionally grayish and have a characteristic smell.The flower is box-like with petals enclosing its opening. When the flower blooms, the petals fall off and the masses of protruding stamens provide the usually bland-looking tree with a colorful appearance. Eucalyptus camaldulensis in Israel were planted by foresters.Although eucalyptus can grow in swampy land, taking up massive quantities of water, it survives nevertheless under arid conditions. Eucalyptus camaldulensis is reported to tolerate alkali, drought, fire, light frost, heat, high pH, poor soil, salt, savanna, and waterlogging. It is rather intolerant of weeds. Its leaves are also valuable as they contain an oil used in alternative medicine. Leaves contain 0.1–0.4% essential oil, 77% of which is cineol. Leaves contain 5–11% tannin. Due to the toughness of its wood and thick trunk, eucalyptus became a major source of lumber.Forestation was undertaken to plant the uncultivated, barren land in order to obtain a legal holding on the purchased property. They were first imported at the end of the 19th century in order to dry swamps (a conviction later shown to be incorrect) covering large parts of the coastal plains and other areas. The largest plantings took place in the Hadera, Rosh Pina, and Petah Tikvah regions.In 1895 Baron Edmond de Rothschild, gave funds to Hadera to drain the swamps by building canals and planting large eucalyptus groves. The eucalyptus tree soon became Haderah’s symbol. The German Templars, Christians who came to pre-state Israel in 1868 and 1875, set up agricultural villages and planted many pine trees in the Carmel region. Thousands of eucalyptuses were planted in the 50s along intercity highways to greenify the brown, desolate roadways and to provide employment for the country’s newcomers.

In 1901, delegates to the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel declared formation of the Jewish National Fund (KKL). This new communal endeavor was charged with purchasing agricultural land in Eretz Israel and leasing it to Jewish settlers. The British Mandate (1917-1948) sought to preserve existing forests through their Forest Ordinance (1926), which established 430 forest preserves throughout the country, totaling about 83,000 hectares. The Mandate authorities began afforestation in order to prevent land erosion, halt the shifting of sand dunes, provide wood and preserve the natural vegetation. The forest law dating from the time of the British mandate is still valid, and a revised draft prepared by the Forest Department has not yet been officially approved.