https://palestineflowers.com/whats-new New pages and updates in a record of the wild plants of Palestine. en https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-biblical-hyssop https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-biblical-hyssop#2026-10-11-new Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Biblical hyssop is za'atar, Origanum syriacum, the herb Palestinians still gather. A tenth-century Arabic translation of Exodus already writes صعتر. The garden herb Hyssopus officinalis is in neither checklist of Palestine's native flora. https://palestineflowers.com/about https://palestineflowers.com/about#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 How this record is made: photographs taken in Palestine, Palestinian and Arabic sources read at source rather than summarised, every strong claim carrying a citation, and an open list of what has not yet been verified. https://palestineflowers.com/calendar https://palestineflowers.com/calendar#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 What flowers and what is gathered in Palestine, month by month, including the quiet months from October to January. Built on this record's plant pages, on Barari's blooming data for 466 wild plants, and on the Palestinian farming year Tawfiq Canaan set down in 1923, which begins in December. https://palestineflowers.com/criminalised-plants https://palestineflowers.com/criminalised-plants#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Israel has made it a crime to gather za'atar, akkoub and maramia, and the people it prosecutes are Palestinians. No indictment is recorded for the showy flowers on the same list. The cases show what the ban is for. The wrong is the claim itself: a colonising power deciding what Palestinians may take from their own land. https://palestineflowers.com/edible https://palestineflowers.com/edible#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Palestine has one of the richest wild-food traditions in the Mediterranean: roughly 100 gathered species recorded in the northern West Bank alone. What is eaten, which part, in which months, who documented it — and which three plants Israel has made it a crime to gather. https://palestineflowers.com/flora-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/flora-of-palestine#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The native vascular flora of the Palestinian West Bank runs to 1,710 taxa in 652 genera and 102 families, counted by Mohammed Ali-Shtayeh, Salam AbuZaitoun and Rana Jamous in 2026. Across Palestine as a whole the figure is 1,826, of which 1,217 occur in Gaza and 140 nowhere else. 28.2% are threatened; 29 are already gone. https://palestineflowers.com/lily-of-the-field https://palestineflowers.com/lily-of-the-field#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 “Consider the lilies of the field” — Matthew 6:28. The Greek is κρίνα τοῦ ἀγροῦ, krina tou agrou, and it names no species. Commentators have proposed the anemone, the crocus, the gladiolus, the narcissus and the Madonna lily. The flower most often meant is Anemone coronaria, which Palestinians call الحنون. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/anacamptis-pyramidalis https://palestineflowers.com/plants/anacamptis-pyramidalis#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 السحلب — the pyramidal orchid. A wild orchid of Palestinian limestone hillsides: what Arabic names it and what it doesn't, how the flower works, the salep trade that is emptying Mediterranean orchid populations, and what a protected-plants list is actually enforced against. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/anemone-coronaria https://palestineflowers.com/plants/anemone-coronaria#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 الحنون / شقائق النعمان — Anemone coronaria. Its Palestinian names, the proverb that closes the sowing season, the dal'ouna verses, the blood in every version of its name, and the policing of what Palestinians may gather from their own land. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/capparis-spinosa https://palestineflowers.com/plants/capparis-spinosa#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Kabbar, الكبّار, is the Arabic name of the caper, Capparis spinosa; it is also called qabbar, shafallah, asaf and alluq. It grows out of bare rock and old walls in Palestine, flowers all summer, and is picked as a bud that is never allowed to open. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/cyclamen-persicum https://palestineflowers.com/plants/cyclamen-persicum#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 بخور مريم — Mary's incense. The wild cyclamen of Palestinian limestone: its Arabic names, why the Latin name gets its homeland wrong, how it became the ancestor of every florist's cyclamen on earth, and what the protected-plants list is actually for. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/iris-haynei https://palestineflowers.com/plants/iris-haynei#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 سوسن فقوعة, the Faqqua iris: a rhizome iris endemic to the hills east of Jenin, flowering March to April between 150 and 550 metres, pollinated by male night bees that shelter inside the flower. Toxic in every part, gathered anyway for ornament, and listed endangered. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-akkoub https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-akkoub#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Akkoub (عكّوب) is gundelia or tumble thistle in English: Gundelia tournefortii. Palestinians gather its spiny flower heads from March to May and cook them in olive oil. It is one of three wild plants Israel prosecutes Palestinians for picking. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-maramia https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-maramia#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Maramia (مريمية, also written maryamiyya, maramiya or miramiyeh) is sage in English: wild sage, Salvia fruticosa, the leaf Palestinians steep with black tea. It is named after the Virgin Mary, it is the second most cited wild edible plant in Palestine, and Israel has made picking it a crime. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-the-flower-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-the-flower-of-palestine#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The Faqqua iris, سوسن فقوعة (Iris haynei), is Palestine's national flower, adopted by the Council of Ministers in 2016. See it in flower, with the three marks that identify it, where it grows east of Jenin, and why Palestinians reach for the red anemone, the hannun, instead. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-zaatar https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-zaatar#2026-10-11-updated Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Za'atar is a plant, Origanum syriacum, before it is the mixture named after it. It is not thyme: the Palestinian wild-food survey lists no Thymus at all. It lists five za'atar species whose foraging windows together run from late January to early October. https://palestineflowers.com/wild-greens-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/wild-greens-of-palestine#2026-09-27-new Sun, 27 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The wild greens Palestinians gather in winter and spring, with every name in Arabic and English: khubeza (mallow), loof (Palestine arum), hummeid (dock), hindbeh (wild chicory), khurfeish (thistle), hweirneh (wall-rocket), lisseineh, luffeita, murrar, and purslane in summer. When each is picked, which part is eaten, how it is cooked, and what the sources disagree on. https://palestineflowers.com/akkoub-in-gaza https://palestineflowers.com/akkoub-in-gaza#2026-09-26-new Sat, 26 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Palestine's national plant checklist lists akkoub (عكوب, Gundelia) as common in the Gaza Strip. But on 26 September 2026 GBIF held 635 records of it in the West Bank and none in Gaza, and three surveys made inside Gaza do not list it. The famine plant reported from Gaza is khubeza. https://palestineflowers.com/changes https://palestineflowers.com/changes#2026-09-18-updated Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 An append-only log of what this record got wrong, when it was found, and what was done about it. Every entry has its own permalink. Corrections are published here rather than made quietly, because a record that never admits an error is not one you can check. https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-plant-names https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-plant-names#2026-09-18-updated Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Every Palestinian plant name on this site, both ways: the Arabic, how it is said, the English and the botanical name, with audio for each. Khubeza is mallow, akkoub is gundelia, and za'atar is Syrian oregano, not thyme. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-khubeza https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-khubeza#2026-09-18-updated Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 In English, khubeza (خبيزة) is mallow: common mallow, Malva sylvestris. A Palestinian spring green cooked with onion and olive oil, whose Arabic name shares a root with khubz, bread. In Gaza it has been eaten through famine. https://palestineflowers.com/wild-flowers-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/wild-flowers-of-palestine#2026-09-18-updated Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Between about 1900 and 1920 the American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem made a photographic series called Wild Flowers of Palestine. This record counted 119 plates in the Wikimedia Commons mirror. Not one of them carries a word of Arabic, and the two plants Palestinians name most often were never photographed at all. https://palestineflowers.com/flora-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/flora-of-palestine#2026-09-03-new Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The native vascular flora of the Palestinian West Bank runs to 1,710 taxa in 652 genera and 102 families, counted by Mohammed Ali-Shtayeh, Salam AbuZaitoun and Rana Jamous in 2026. Across Palestine as a whole the figure is 1,826, of which 1,217 occur in Gaza and 140 nowhere else. 28.2% are threatened; 29 are already gone. https://palestineflowers.com/lily-of-the-field https://palestineflowers.com/lily-of-the-field#2026-09-03-new Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 “Consider the lilies of the field” — Matthew 6:28. The Greek is κρίνα τοῦ ἀγροῦ, krina tou agrou, and it names no species. Commentators have proposed the anemone, the crocus, the gladiolus, the narcissus and the Madonna lily. The flower most often meant is Anemone coronaria, which Palestinians call الحنون. https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-plant-names https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-plant-names#2026-09-03-new Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Every Palestinian plant name on this site, both ways: the Arabic, how it is said, the English and the botanical name, with audio for each. Khubeza is mallow, akkoub is gundelia, and za'atar is Syrian oregano, not thyme. https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-the-national-tree-of-palestine https://palestineflowers.com/what-is-the-national-tree-of-palestine#2026-09-03-new Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The national tree of Palestine is the olive, الزيتون, Olea europaea. Unlike the national flower, which the Council of Ministers adopted in 2016, no Palestinian government has ever designated a national tree by decree. The olive holds the title by use — and by a tree at al-Walaja that may be four thousand years old. https://palestineflowers.com/culture https://palestineflowers.com/culture#2026-09-03-updated Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 The plants of Palestine as they appear in tatreez motifs and dyes, in the farming proverbs that set the sowing date, in dal'ouna and folk song, and in Palestinian painting from Asim Abu Shaqra onward — with sources, and with what has been taken. https://palestineflowers.com/olive-trees-uprooted https://palestineflowers.com/olive-trees-uprooted#2026-09-03-updated Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Every figure people quote predates Gaza. FAO and UNOSAT find 90% of Gaza's olive orchards damaged. The Palestinian Olive Council puts it at nearly a million of Gaza's 1.1 million trees; the Ministry of Agriculture at 2.29 million. Two Palestinian counts, differing by more than double, and no one has reconciled them. https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-poppy https://palestineflowers.com/palestinian-poppy#2026-09-03-updated Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 No. Palestine's national flower is the Faqqua iris, adopted in 2016. The red flower usually called the Palestinian poppy is not a poppy at all: it is the anemone, الحنون, Anemone coronaria. How to tell them apart, which poppies really do grow in Palestine, and why the mistake keeps spreading. https://palestineflowers.com/plants/gladiolus-italicus https://palestineflowers.com/plants/gladiolus-italicus#2026-09-03-updated Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000 سيف الغراب — the crow's sword. The wild gladiolus of the Palestinian wheat fields: four Arabic names for one plant, a March-to-April flowering, and two 1900s Matson plates in which the studio bench, the string and the propped card are all visible in the frame.