The wild plants of Palestine, one at a time.
A record of what grows here: the Arabic and Latin names, where and when each plant appears, what is eaten, what is remembered, and what Israel has criminalised. Photographed on the ground, in Palestine.
Updated · 10 records · 4 hubs · 93 sources cited
The olive harvest, and the first flowers after the summer.
Being gathered: olives, in the two months the Palestinian year gives to the harvest, and shomar, wild fennel.
In flower: narcissus, نرجس, from this month to February; the autumn crocus, الزعفران الخريفي, to December; and the sea daffodil, نرجس بحري, in its last month. 44 of the 466 wild species Barari lists are in flower in October, against 372 in April.
What flowers from October to January → · How many olive trees has Israel destroyed? →
The plants
Ten wild plants so far, each on its own page under its Arabic name: what it is called, where and when it grows, whether it is eaten, what it carries, and what Israel has done to the people who gather it.
Questions people ask
- What is the national flower of Palestine?
The Faqqua iris, سوسن فقوعة, adopted in 2016. The flower Palestinians actually invoke is the red anemone. Both answers are true.
- Is the poppy the national flower of Palestine?
No, and the flower usually called the Palestinian poppy is an anemone.
- What is za'atar?
A plant before it is a spice mix, and not thyme.
- What is the hyssop of the Bible?
Za'atar, and a tenth-century Arabic Exodus already says so.
- How many olive trees has Israel destroyed?
Gaza alone may have lost more in two years than the West Bank lost in fifty-six.
- How many wild plants grow in Palestine?
1,710 native taxa in the West Bank, counted by Palestinian botanists. Two thirds of the national flora sits in the part Israel's war has made impossible to survey.
The names, in Arabic and English
خبيزة, زعتر, عكّوب and the rest, in both directions, with the botanical name beside each. Every name can be heard spoken aloud.