The Lamiaceae or Labiatae are a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle, or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, and perilla, as well as other medicinal herbs such as catnip, salvia, bee balm, wild dagga, and oriental motherwort.
Satureja is a genus of aromatic plants of the family Lamiaceae, related to rosemary and thyme. It is native to southern and southeastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Historically, Satureja was defined broadly and many species of the subtribe Menthinae from throughout the world were included in it. In the modern cladistic era of botany, Satureja was redefined to a narrower monophyletic genus whose species are all native to Eurasia. Several species are cultivated as culinary herbs called savory, and they have become established in the wild in a few places.
Clinopodium douglasii,, yerba buena, or Oregon tea is a rambling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from British Columbia southwards to Southern California and from the Pacific coast eastwards to western Montana. The plant takes the form of a sprawling, mat-forming perennial. The name "yerba buena" derives from Spanish for "good herb" and is applied to various other plants.
Salvia officinalis, the common sage or sage, is a perennial, evergreen subshrub, with woody stems, grayish leaves, and blue to purplish flowers. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae and native to the Mediterranean region, though it has been naturalized in many places throughout the world. It has a long history of medicinal and culinary use, and in modern times it has been used as an ornamental garden plant. The common name "sage" is also used for closely related species and cultivars.
Za'atar is a Levantine culinary herb or family of herbs. It is also the name of a spice mixture that includes the herb along with toasted sesame seeds, dried sumac, often salt, and other spices. As a family of related Levantine herbs, it contains plants from the genera Origanum (oregano), Calamintha, Thymus, and Satureja (savory) plants. The name za'atar alone most properly applies to Origanum syriacum, considered in biblical scholarship to be the ezov of the Hebrew Bible, often translated as hyssop but distinct from modern Hyssopus officinalis.
Lythrum is a genus of 38 species of flowering plants native to the temperate world. Commonly known as loosestrife, they are among 32 genera of the family Lythraceae.
Summer savory is among the best known of the savory genus. It is an annual, but otherwise is similar in use and flavor to the perennial winter savory. It is used more often than winter savory, which has a slightly more bitter flavor.
Clinopodium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, in the subtribe Menthinae. Clinopodium belongs to a large and complex group of genera including many New World mints such as Cunila, Monarda, and Pycnanthemum, and this group is in turn a sister clade to Mentha. The genus name Clinopodium is derived from the Latin clinopodion, from the Ancient Greek κλινοπόδιον (klinopódion), from κλίνη (klínē) "bed" and πόδιον (pódion) "little foot". These were names for Clinopodium vulgare. They allude to the form of the calyx.
Westringia is a genus of Australian shrubs. As with other members of the mint family their upper petal is divided into two lobes. There are four stamens - the upper two are fertile while the lower two are reduced to staminodes. The leaves are in whorls of 3 or 4.
Origanum syriacum subsp. syriacum; syn. Majorana syriaca, bible hyssop, Biblical-hyssop, Lebanese oregano or Syrian oregano, is an aromatic perennial herb in the mint family, Lamiaceae.
Micromeria is a genus of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae, widespread across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, with a center of diversity in the Mediterranean region and the Canary Islands. It is sometimes placed within the genus Satureja. The name is derived from the Greek words μῑκρος (mīkros), meaning "small," and μερίς (meris), meaning "portion," referring to the leaves and flowers. Common names include savory and whitweed.
Oenothera fruticosa, the narrowleaf evening primrose or narrow-leaved sundrops, is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family.
Kil'ayim are the prohibitions in Jewish law which proscribe the planting of certain mixtures of seeds, grafting, the mixing of plants in vineyards, the crossbreeding of animals, the formation of a team in which different kinds of animals work together, and the mixing of wool with linen in garments.
Eli Putievsky (1942–2017) was a botanist, a distinguished Israeli scientist at the Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research (ARO) in the field of medicinal plants, and the head of ARO during 1999-2007.
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, native to Libya, southeastern Europe from Sardinia to Turkey; Crete, Cyprus, Lebanon, 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.
Verbascum sinuatum, commonly known as the scallop-leaved mullein, the wavyleaf mullein, or Candela regia, is a species of perennial herbaceous plants in the genus Verbascum (mullein), growing in heavy soils in Central Asia and the Mediterranean region. It grows to 1.2–1.5 m (3.9–4.9 ft). The plant has an erect inflorescence stem, and is entirely covered with stellate hairs (trichomes) which are not pleasant to the touch.
Wild edible plants in the regions of Israel and Palestine have been used to sustain life in periods of scarcity and famine, or else simply used as a supplementary food source for additional nourishment and pleasure. The diverse flora of Israel and 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.
A fig-cake 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 a snack or dessert 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.
Micromeria glomerata, known locally as cliffthyme or thyme of Taganana, is a species of plant with woody chameleophyte flowers, belonging to the Lamiaceae family. It is a species endemic to the northeast of the Canary Island of Tenerife, whose description was first made in 1974, thanks to botanist Pedro Luis Pérez de Paz. It is a medicinal and aromatic plant with pink-purple flowers that grows at low altitude in the crevices of the slopes of the protected area of the Anaga Rural Park, located in the massif of the same name. The flexible, puberulose stem and with internodes can reach 10 to 40 centimeters in height. On the other hand, the leaves are small and flat, 8 mm long by 6 mm wide.11
Thymbra spicata, also commonly known as spiked savoury, spiked thymbra and thyme spike, is a perennial-green dwarf shrub of the family Lamiaceae, native to Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel (Palestine), Jordan, Iraq and Iran, having erect stems bearing strongly scented leaves, rich in polyphenols such as rosmarinic acid, carvacrol (CVL) and different flavonoids.
