A lone Rakefet in December!

I almost never paid attention to the plants and flora around me.  We just started to study this subject and I decided to throw myself into it.  I bought a few booklets to help me identify flowers, trees, and bushes.  This morning I went out for a walk with them in hand and was so excited to start to look carefully and distinguish between the plant life on the Gilboa. I was able to connect so much of what I saw to what I have been studying.  Five samples in particular stood to me.

The first is this beautiful רקפת or Persian Cyclamen.  It was the only one I saw and I really was keeping an eye out from the time I first noticed it.  Wikipedia says that they bloom from January through April but my booklet says from October to May so perhaps its not so strange to see one.

The next are not nearly as striking as the Rakefet but I was nearly as thrilled to notice them.  I found a Carob tree:

Wikipedia noted that the Carob isn’t in the Bible but it appears in a number of Rabbinic stories – The Choni HaMeAgel Story, the Jewish Rip Van Winkle. R. Eliezer and the oven of Achnai and the story Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son who lived off of a Carob tree that miraculously grew in the care they were hiding in. Apparantly the Carob isn’t indigenous to Israel but was brought here by the Romans.

Here is some קוצנית סירה or Prickley Burnet. It is one of the most common shrubs in the Mediterranean costal strip.

Another common shrub אלת המסטיק – Lentisk.  Mastik in Hebrew is gum and the sap of the Lentisk was used in the past to chew on like gum.

Lastly, Here is a pic of an Italian Cypress.  Apparently these may have been indigenous at one point here in Israel but nowadays they are not wild here.