Flora
"A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey."
Much has since been added to this Biblical description of what grows in Israel. Bananas, oranges and other citrus fruits dominate the coastal plain. Deciduous fruit trees grow all over the country, but particularly well in the cool hills. Dates, bananas, avocado, guava and mango flourish in the hot Jordan valley. The basic grains rub shoulders with vegetables and tobacco, cotton, groundnuts and sugar beets.
Israel's landscape of flowers and plants changes abruptly with its different geographical regions. Natural woodlands of calliprinos oaks cover the upper Galilee, Mount Carmel and other hilly regions. In spring, rockrose and thorny broom turn the hillsides pink, white and yellow. There are hyacinth, crocus and narcissus in the mountains as early as December, followed by anemones, tulips, cyclamen, iris and daisies. Honeysuckle creeps over the bushes, and large plane trees provide shade along the freshwater streams of Galilee.
The country's woodlands and forests were ravaged during centuries of warfare and neglect, but much has been done to reforest the countryside. Today, there are over 200 million trees in Israel - forests of pine, tamarisk, carob and eucalyptus. Wildflowers and medicinal plants grow in profusion. Fruit trees bloom from January to April. In the south, acacia trees and the prickly sabra cactus suck moisture from the desert. In the Negev highlands, massive Atlantic pistachios strike a dramatic note among the dry riverbeds, and date palms grow wherever there is sufficient underground water.
Many of the country's cultivated flowers - among them, the iris, madonna lily, tulip and hyacinth - have relatives among wild flowers. Soon after the first winter rains fall in October/November, a green carpet grows, covering the country until the next dry season. Pink and white cyclamen and red, white and purple anemones bloom from December to March, followed by the blue lupin and yellow corn marigold. Many native plants, such as the crocus and squill, are geophytes, storing nourishment in their bulbs and tubers and blooming at the end of the summer.
Picking wildflowers used to be a popular pastime, with some even sold commercially. In the mid-1960s, however, the Nature Reserves Authority, with the help of the Society for the Protection of Nature, published a list of protected wildflowers and launched a vigorous education campaign. The public was urged: "Don't pick! Don't uproot! Don't buy! And don't sell!" The effort saved Israel's wildflowers, and three decades later it is considered the most successful nature protection campaign conducted in the country.
Botanists today divide the country's flora into seven distinct groups:
- Mediterranean
- Irano-Turanian, which is also found on the Asian steppes of the Syrian desert, in Iran, Anatolia and the Gobi Desert
- Saharo-Arabian, which is also found in the Sahara, Sinai and Arabian deserts
- Sudano-Zambesian, typical of Africa's subtropical savannas
- Euro-Siberian
- Plants that grow in more than one of these regions
- Species from the Americas, Australia and South Africa that have started growing in Israel without human assistance
Four major features have shaped this floral diversity: the country's location and topography; its rock and soil formations; its climate; and the impact of man. The human influence has been so powerful that it has actually changed some landscapes: during the countless years that man has roamed this area, he has collected and cultivated plants for food, cleared land for agriculture, domesticated grazing animals, selected and deified holy trees,' and brought new plants into the country.
Today Israel has 19 principal plant communities. They are:
1. Maquis (areas containing small trees and shrubs) and forests: Located in the mountains of Judea, the Carmel and Galilee, these were the main woodlands. In most of the area today, the wild trees have been replaced by cultivated plants and domesticated trees, such as the olive and almond, or have been reforested with the Aleppo pine. Where cultivated land is abandoned, low herbaceous Mediterranean semi-shrubs grow.
2. Oak woodlands: On the volcanic rock of the Golan Heights, maquis dominated by the common oak grows in areas higher than 500 meters above sea level. Botanists believe that the woodland ranges here have decreased substantially during the past century.
3. Winter deciduous (montane) forests: On Mount Hermon, between 1,300 and 1,800 meters above sea level, winter deciduous trees and shrubs that can withstand the cold and wind flourish.
4. Quercus ithaburensis woodlands: This Mediterranean tree grows in Israel's drier and warmer coastal areas, although much of these woodlands have been converted into olive groves.
5. Carob and terebinth woodlands: These forests cover the limestone hills at the foot of the central mountain range.
6. Lotus and herbaceous vegetation: These shrubs are scattered over the hilly south-eastern Galilee, making it look like a park without trees.
7. Savanna Mediterranean: In areas too warm and too dry for Mediterranean trees, the quasi-tropical jujube and spiny trees of Sudanese origin grow.
8. Semi-steppe: Where Israel's Mediterranean region meets the desert, the vegetation changes to semi-shrubs.
9. Cushion-plants: Mount Hermon plants that grow beyond 1,900 meters above sea level must survive three to five months covered by snow each year and another four to five months of drought. The dominant vegetation here is small, spiny, rounded, dense shrubs known as cushion-plants.
10. Steppe: Semi-shrubs cover the slopes and hills of areas of the country that receive 80 to 250 mm. of rain a year. This vegetation formation is often referred to as steppe.
11. Atlantic terebinth steppe: On rocky terrain higher than 800 meters, the Atlantic terebinth grows.
12. Desert: Steppe vegetation gradually gives way to Saharo-Arabian plant species as the climate becomes drier.
13. Sand: Each of Israel's three sandy areas has a different climate and sand of different origin. Each, therefore, has different kinds of vegetation.
14. Oases: The warmest parts of Israel are the Arava, the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley. Run-off and underground water accumulate here, enabling trees of Sudanese origin to grow in the oases, and salt-resistant date palms to flourish around desert springs.
15. Desert savanna: In the Rift Valley, rainfall gradually increases northward from an annual 30 mm. around Eilat to 150 mm. north of Jericho. Sudanese trees with long roots take advantage of the high water table in this area of poor rainfall, making parts of it resemble the East African savannas.
16. Arava woodland: The deep sands of the Arava valley are covered with a sparse woodland of trees growing up to 4 meters in height.
17. Swamps and reed thickets: Water-logged soils on river banks support dense vegetation.
18. Wet saline: Salty water moistens the soil throughout the year along the Jordan, the Dead Sea, the Arava valley and on the Mediterranean shore near Akko.
19. In areas of intense human activity: Vegetation in such areas is easily differentiated.