This year, we have been experiencing a miserable winter. Our newspapers are filled with heartbreaking stories about the captives held by Hamas and the Israel-Hamas war. But we can console ourselves that spring is coming.
Spring – every year it returns like a miracle, and Israel is carpeted with wildflowers. There are nearly 3,000 types of wild plants in this tiny land, a wonderful profusion – among the most abundant on Earth.
Israel boasts a wide variety of ecological systems: deserts and marshes, high mountains, dense forests, and open fields with wildflowers to suit each habitat.
Wildflowers in Israel
Wildflowers are protected in Israel, as they are particularly rare and endangered species. Nature reserves prohibit picking any flowers, even the most common, which helps them to propagate over wider areas. This brings the beautiful sun birds, which feast on their nectar.
The Song of Songs, which we read every Passover, is one of the most beautiful love poems in the world. King Solomon wrote it as a dialogue between a young shepherd and his beloved:
Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away,
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone
The flowers appear on the earth,
The time of singing is come
And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.
The flowers he refers to are called nitzanim in Hebrew. Flowers carpet the fields – shiny, red poppies flaunting scarlet, beauty in the grass. The “turtle” is the turtle dove.
In the Jerusalem Forest, delicate cyclamens bloom in the crevices between the rocks. Called “Solomon’s crown” in Hebrew, they lift their pink, cream, or lilac heads on slender stalks. Clumps of wild violets, the dew shimmering like diamonds, add their touch of magic.
Israel’s rainy season, mid-October to late March, always leaves a bouquet of green. The Sharon Valley will be dotted with tulips and narcissus.
I am the Rose of Sharon,
A lily of the valleys.
It is believed that King Solomon was referring to the magnificent black tulips of the Galilee.
In spring, even the weeds are beautiful – the milk vetch, which is just a common thistle, adds purple blooms to the roadside. The rock rose flowers abundantly in forest glades, and the orange ranunculus burst into bloom. Like its velvety cousin, the anemone, it is a protected wildflower in Israel.
The perfume of daffodils, which suffused our winter, is still wafted on the breeze, and the white, cream, yellow, and blue noses of lupins are pushing through the soil. Oleanders will soon be in bud, growing wild by the banks of the Jordan River and near streams in the Galilee.
And the blue statica reminds us that we, too, have a Mediterranean coast like the famed Riviera. This lovely sea plant blooms from mid-spring to mid-summer, when its corolla drops off and only the sepal remains.
Who says Israel has almost no natural resources? Soon, when you see the splendor in the grass of the land’s spring glory, the wildflowers glowing like jewels, you’ll echo the words of writer Elbert Hubbard:
Had I but two loaves of bread, I would sell one of them and buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.
The writer is the author of 14 books. She can be reached at dwaysman@gmail.com.