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Published: February 19th 2008
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We’ve had some time between research flowering seasons. The rains have been sparse, and we had a couple of bouts of unseasonably cold weather, both of which have set back the spring flush of flowering. This delay and the break between the end of the last Hebrew class and the start of the next have given me some time off to just enjoy the weeks of warm weather and the flowers that are starting to bloom. Kaitlin, my former Puget Sound research student, has arrived, and we have started to explore the “natural” areas in and around Haifa. It is hard to say “natural” here because everywhere here has been occupied for thousands of years, and there isn’t really anywhere that is devoid of human traces. Nevertheless, there are places that have stayed more or less wild.
In some places in the world, the people live in the valleys and the high areas are wild; in other places, the people live on the high areas and the drainages are wild. The latter is the case here, and the steep wadis (drainages) are home to a diverse array of flora and fauna. Despite my botanical leanings, my favorite thing is hearing
the jackals howling at night from the wadi next to our building. As he already mentioned, Stewart also saw a family of wild boars traveling down into the wadi along the wall next to our yard. There are also some wildflowers that have managed to maintain themselves despite the continual disturbances.
Ramping fumitory (
Fumaria capreolata) and
Cape sorrel (
Oxalis pes-caprae) are common, the latter of which is pretty, but a serious invasive plant in many of the nature reserves.
In mid-January, the bloom season started in earnest. Stewart, Kaitlin and I walked a trail leading down one wadi, around the nose of the hill to the south, and then up the next wadi back to the top. It was a glorious day--sunshine and 60 degrees--and we saw our first spectacular wildflowers. This was mostly open, typical Mediterranean maquis habitat, with low, usually spiny, shrubs and trees occurring only in occasional clumps around the springs. The Israeli national flower,
common cyclamen (
Cyclamen persicum) grows as a “weed” everywhere. It’s amazing to see what seem to me to be these greenhouse cultivated exotic plants popping up everywhere in the stone garden walls and along the paths. The flowers are every bit
as spectacular as they are in the greenhouse varieties we see in the States. We also saw the first bloom of the spectacularly red
crown anemone (
Anemone coronaria), which is the most successful of the several colors that appear in the species, and according to Amots, is the only one to exhibit heliotropy--following the sun across the sky. His as yet untested hypothesis is that the heliotropy warms the flower enough that the pollinators active at this cold time of year prefer it over the non-heliotropic colors. We also saw
friar’s cowl, a jack-in-the-pulpit relative (
Arisarum vulgare);
virgin’s bower, a beautiful viny clematis (
Clematis cirrhosa);
asphodel, a striking, tall lily being visited by bees (
Asphodelus ramosa); romulea, a gorgeous, tiny purple crocus-like flower (
Romulea phoenicia); and
ricotia, a small Brassicaceae (
Ricotia lunaria).
The following week, Kaitlin and I followed a wadi from an intersection south of the University of Haifa, down to a confluence and back up the other wadi to the University. Again, it was beautiful, but a very different habitat. Much of the hike was under a canopy of oak, madrone, and other trees along an intermittent streambed. We clambered over big boulders, squeezed down chutes that
were clearly carved by rushing water, and picked our way around overhangs that would be 10 foot waterfalls had it been raining. There was an old oak, not so tall, but with an amazing root system hugging a cascade of rock. We saw
black asplenium, a graceful 10” fern growing on the rocks near the streambed, (
Asplenium adiantum-nigrum); and
butcher’s broom, a very weird lily whose flowers grow directly on the surfaces of what look like leaves (
Ruscus aculeatus). There were also areas where we came out from the trees onto rocky outcrops and found ourselves wandering among the native
common narcissus, (
Narcissus tazetta), which is deliciously fragrant and grows right out of cracks in the rocks. Near the end of the hike, we came into an area that burned about 10 years ago, and as a result is much more open. In this area were many more crown anemones, romulea, and cyclamen, and we also saw more birds than anywhere else on the hike. There was a large flock of finches, many stonechats, and a merlin and a kestrel hunting persistently around us. All in all, a great day in the field.
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Jane
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Thanks for a wonderful peek at Israel's varied botany!