Introduction
This website is devoted to the study of wild plants of the Land of Israel which has been a focal point of interest to people all over the world since Biblical times. Everybody who is interested in the nature and the environment of this Land will find here a wealth of information regarding all kinds of its plants. Special emphasis has been given to the linkage between the plants and the Jewish traditions and scholarly literature. It is being expanded and updated frequently.
About
In spite of Israel's small area it has a very diverse flora represented by ca. 2500 species of higher plants. Compare this with only 1500 species in the British Isles that are more than ten times larger. The causes for this unusual diversity are related to the climatic history of this part of the globe and current connections with a wide variety of climatic regions in Europe, Central Asia, The Sahara and the tropics.
Please note that it is under constant development. We have pictures of most of the local plants, and we keep adding all the time.
Our aim
This website is devoted to the wealth of the beauty represented by the plants that grow in this country. It is aimed at plant lovers of all walks of life and all ages, from school children to their grandparents. Therefore, we tried to keep it simple while not compromising on accuracy or breadth. Its mission is to bring the information to a wide audience in a friendly way in order to educate and promote the appreciation of the natural resources present here, hoping that it will encourage efforts of nature conservation and sustainability.
This interactive website uses modern Internet technologies for presenting of texts pictures, sounds and videos in clear and simple fashion. We are confident that it will help people of all ages, from school children to their grandparents to get acquainted with the environment and appreciate its beauty. Thus, it will promote appreciation and love of the nature around us. This website is open freely to the public throughout the world, but all the materials are protected by international copyright laws. Plant information can be found by scientific and common Hebrew and English names. As time and means will allow us we will translate all the content into English and other languages.
Acknowledgements
The long and flower strewn road we have passed so far in setting up this important project has not come to an end yet. At this milestone we wish to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accompanied us in this arduous journey that have started with a vision, continued by trial and errors through programming, collection of materials and building this website.
We thank all the volunteers who helped, supported, took photographs, wrote, updated, encouraged, wrote the code etc. All Their deeds are highly appreciated.
The persons behind this venture are Mrs. Sara Gold, Prof. Amram Eshel, professor of botany at Tel-Aviv University, and the brothers Abraham and Michael Plotnizki, who do the programming. The pictures were donated by professional and amateur photographers and plant enthusiasts, whose names are listed next to their pictures, who took these photographs with love and dedication. The texts were written for this website by knowledgeable botanists, especially noted are Dr. Erga Aloni, Dr. Dror Melamed, Leora Keret, and the late Mr. Mike Livneh who wrote most of the texts.
If you want to contribute pictures of plants we don’t have yet, please send them to our e-mail and we will be glad to add them to our database.
