The genus Anchusa belongs to the borage family (Boraginaceae). It includes about 35 species found growing in Europe, North Africa, South Africa and Western Asia. They are introduced in the United States.
Arum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to Europe, northern Africa, and western and central Asia, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean region. Frequently called arum lilies, they are not closely related to the true lilies Lilium. Plants in closely related Zantedeschia are also called "arum lilies".
Pentaglottis is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. It is represented by a single species, Pentaglottis sempervirens, commonly known as the green alkanet, evergreen bugloss or alkanet, and is a bristly, perennial plant native to southwestern Europe, in northwest Iberia and France. It grows to approximately 60 cm (24") to 90 cm (36"), usually in damp or shaded places and often close to buildings. It has brilliant blue flowers, and retains its green leaves through the winter. The plant has difficulty growing in acidic soil. The name "alkanet" is also used for dyer's bugloss and common bugloss. Green alkanet is an introduced species in the British Isles.
Drimia maritima is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. This species is known by several common names, including squill, sea squill, sea onion, and maritime squill. It may also be called red squill, particularly a form which produces red-tinged flowers instead of white. It is native to southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa.
Gustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine before the First World War, collecting inscriptions, poetry, and proverbs. He also collected physical articles illustrative of the life of the indigenous farmers and herders of the country, including rock and plant samples, house and farm tools, small archaeological finds, and ceramics. He pioneered the study of biblical and early post-biblical Aramaic, publishing an authoritative grammar (1894) and dictionary (1901), as well as other works. His collection of 15,000 historic photographs and 5,000 books, including rare 16th century prints, and maps formed the basis of the Gustaf Dalman Institute at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Greifswald, which commemorates and continues his work.
A tabun oven, or simply tabun, is a portable clay oven, shaped like a truncated cone. While all were made with a top opening, which could be used as a small stove top, some were made with an opening at the bottom from which to stoke the fire. Built and used in biblical times as the family, neighbourhood, or village oven, tabun ovens continue to be built and used in parts of the Middle East today.
Chrozophora tinctoria is a plant species native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It is also present as a weed in North America and Australia.
Lupinus pilosus, commonly known as blue lupine, is a species of flowering plant from the family Fabaceae which is endemic to Israel where it is found in Mediterranean scrubland. It has a 30–70 centimetres (12–28 in) long stem and 3–8 centimetres (1.2–3.1 in) long legume. The species blooms from February to May. The species have white coloured flowers which are 1–1.5 centimetres (0.39–0.59 in) long and pods the diameter of which is 3–8 centimetres (1.2–3.1 in). In Israel the Lupinus pilosus has blue flowers with white vertical spot at the middle.
Hormuzakia aggregata is a flowering annual plant in the Borage family, known by the common name massed alkanet.
Bikkurim, or first-fruits, are a type of sacrificial offering which was offered by ancient Israelites. In each agricultural season, the first-grown fruits were brought to the Temple and laid by the altar, and a special declaration recited.
Satureja thymbra, commonly known as savory of Crete, whorled savory, pink savory, and Roman hyssop, is a perennial-green dwarf shrub of the family Lamiaceae, having strongly scented leaves, endemic to Libya, southeastern Europe from Sardinia to Turkey; Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel (Palestine). The plant is noted for its dark-green leaves which grow on numerous, closely compacted branches, reaching a height of 20–50 cm. The plant bears pink to purple flowers that blossom between March and June.
Linum strictum, commonly known as rigid flax, upright flax, and upright yellow flax, is a species of flax that has a rigid stem, from whence it derives its taxonomic name, growing to a height of 10–45 cm. The plant is endemic to the Mediterranean region, and features highly in classical Hebrew and Greek literature, owing principally to its cultivation for its plant fiber, linen, but also for its edible seeds and culinary foliage.
A limepit is either a place where limestone is quarried, or a man-made pit used to burn lime stones in the same way that modern-day kilns and furnaces constructed of brick are now used above ground for the calcination of limestone and by which quicklime is produced, an essential component in waterproofing and in wall plastering.
Butts and bounds, shortened form for "abuttals and boundaries" of a property, are the boundary lines delineated between plots of land, usually those which define the end of an estate, as used in legal deeds, titles, etc. These are usually descriptive features in the property, such as trees, outcroppings of stone, or riverine brooks, etc., and are signified in the legal deed for purposes of identification.
Echium judaeum, commonly known as the Judean viper's bugloss, is an annual plant endemic to southern Lebanon, southern Syria and Israel, of the Boraginaceae family, and which, like other herbaceous flowering plants of the same genus, derives its name from the style's resemblance to the forked-tongue of a serpent during the flower's pistillate-stage of development.
Wild edible plants in the geographical region known as Israel and Palestine, like in other countries, have been used to sustain life in periods of dearth and famine, or else simply used as a supplementary food source for additional nourishment and pleasure. The diverse flora of Israel / Palestine offers a wide-range of plants suitable for human consumption, many of which have a long history of usage in the daily cuisines of its native peoples.
Podonosma orientalis, commonly known as golden drop, is a species of flowering plant resembling a low-lying shrub of the Boraginaceae family, first described by Carl Linnaeus. It is endemic to Turkey, the Eastern Mediterranean, namely, Syria, Lebanon, Israel (Palestine), and stretching as far as the woodlands and desert steppes of Jordan, Iraq, and in Western and Southern Iran. In Israel it is a regular feature in the Judean and Samaritan deserts, as also on Mount Carmel, where it is very common.
Leontice leontopetalum, commonly known as leontice, lion's foot, lion's turnip, and lion's leaf, is a perennial geophyte having a wide distribution, and growing primarily in semi-desert regions. The name "lion's foot" is derived from the Greek λεοντοπέταλη [= "lioness"] in reference to a fancied resemblance between the shape of the leaves and the pads of a lioness’s paw.
Fig-cake (fruit) is a mass or lump of dried and compressed figs, usually formed by a mold into a round or square block for storage, or for selling in the marketplace for human consumption. The fig-cake is not a literal cake made as a pastry with a dough batter, but rather a thick and often hardened paste of dried and pressed figs made into a loaf, sold by weight and eaten as food in Mediterranean countries and throughout the Near East. It is named "cake" only for its compacted shape when several are pounded and pressed together in a mold.
