Atriplex halimus, Sea Purslane, Shrubby Orache,
Shrubby Saltbush, מלוח קיפח
"They pick mallow and the leaves of bushes..."
Job 30:4
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| | Scientific name: |
| Atriplex halimus L. |
| Common name: |
| Sea Purslane, Shrubby Orache, Shrubby Saltbush |
| Dutch name: |
| Melde |
| Hebrew name: |
| מלוח קיפח |
| Family: |
| Chenopodiaceae, סלקיים |
Location: Ein Avdat; Date Picture Taken: October 14, 2007
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| | Life form: |
| Phanerophyte, shrub |
| Leaves: |
| Alternate, entire |
| Flowers: |
| Green |
| Flowering Period: |
| April, May, June, July, August, September, October |
| Habitat: |
| Salty habitats |
| Distribution: |
| Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts |
| Chorotype: |
| Med - Saharo-Arabian |
| Summer shedding: |
| Perenating |
Location: Ein Avdat; Date Picture Taken: October 14, 2007
Derivation of the botanical name:
Atriplex, ατραφαξιϛ, ατραφαξυϛ, αδραφαξυϛ, ανδραφαξιϛ, a pot-herb like spinach, orach (Atriplex hortensis) from which the entire genus gets its name.
halimus, αλιμοϛ, of or belonging to the sea.
The translation of the Hebrew word 'maluach'(מלוח) is 'orache' and not 'mallow'.
In Hebrew, in Chaldee, and in Syriac, the word Maluach, מלוח, implies a brackish or salt-tasted plant. In the Septuagint, it is rendered ,άλιμα, the halimus.
- The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
The deserts of Arabia abound with saline particles, which give a saltish, bitter taste to the few hardy plants that live there.
The Talmud refers to the orache as the food of the poor. In times of famine it was eaten both by shepherds and by their flocks.
Dioscorides (lib.i.121) describes Atriplex halimus as a kind of bramble, without thorns, and says that its leaves are boiled and eaten.
Galen of Pergamum (Greek: Γαληνός, Galēnos) (129 – 200/217 CE), says, that the tops, when young, are used for food.
Hesychius of Alexandria (῾Ησύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς), a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, says: It grows in dry and desert places.
Serapion says, that at Bagdad quantities of this vegetable are hawked about; those who carry it, crying "molochia, molochia!" which is nearly the Hebrew word: and it is certain, from Franciscus Meninski, 1680 (Lexicon 3968), that the pot-herb which the Turks call " küsmechæt," " küsmelæt," and " müllach," is a species of halimus; probably the sea-orach.
Samuel Bochart (1599-1667), a French Protestant biblical scholar, quotes from Abenbitar, an Arabian author, a declaration that the plant which Dioscorides calls " halimus," is that which the Syrians call " maluch."
The reasons which Bochart gives for supposing it the halimus, are,
1) because the Syrians still call this plant by the same name;
2) because the Hebrew name and the Greek άλιμος refer to the salt taste which the Arab writers attribute to this plant ;
3) because as the maluach is described as the food of the wretched, so is the halimus in Athenaeus;
4) because the LXX render מלוח by 'AΛIMA ; and (lastly) because it is described in Job as cropped upon the shrub, which exactly agrees with what the Arab writers say of the maluch or hulimus, namely, that they ate the tops of it.
H.B.Tristram (1822-1906) wrote: "We found thickets of it (Atriplex halimus) of considerable extent on the west side of the sea, and it exclusively supplied us with fuel for many days. It grows there to the height of ten feet- more than double its size on the Mediterranean.
Location: Ein Gedi; Date Picture Taken: December 15, 2005
Location: Ein Avdat; Date Picture Taken: October 14, 2007
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