Blooming in November: Meadow Saffron - סתוונית היורה

November 2019 Cheshvan תש"פ

What’s in bloom in Israel this month?

Meadow Saffron, Colchicum stevenii, סתוונית היורה

ונתתי מטר ארצכם בעתו יורה ומלקוש"  דברים י"א י"ד”

"I will give the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the late rain” Deutoronomy 11:14

What does a nice English girl know about the first rains?  Growing up in England it rains all the time.  The first rain there is the rain that falls on the 1st January and the last one is on the 31st December, very simple.

I made Aliyah in the winter of 1991/1992 which some will remember as one of the worst winters in many years.  Winter came very late that year however it came with a bang.  I was living in Arad, a city in the desert not known for its heavy rainfall.  The first time the rain fell there the children from the houses surrounding our campus were dancing in the streets.  Everyone came out of their front doors to feel those first drops and breathe in that wonderful smell released by a first rain.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  In London we just mutter under our breath, put up the umbrella and carry stoically on.

I learnt a new word in ulpan (Hebrew class) that day - the Yoreh - the early rain.

However not all rain is the Yoreh.  A heavy rain that very occasionally falls in August or September is not necessarily the Yoreh.  This is because one rain too early is not the right timing for crops - mostly wheat and barley - that are planted only after Succot. (the feast of tabernacles)  We start to pray for rain only on Shemini Atzeret, which comes at the end of the Succot festival also known as the festival for gathering in last year’s crops.  This is because formerly this is the start of the new agricultural cycle.

Six months have gone by since the last rains in April and the land has turned brown, covered in a fine layer of dust just waiting for the rains to wake up all the wild seeds and to wash everything clean.  Watch how the first rains change the color of the evergreens in the landscape from monotonous brown grey to different hues of greens.

This year has been unusual.  The first rains came at the end of October but since then we have had a heat wave with a hot dry wind from the East, (sponsored by Lobello?) possibly drying up any seed which may have sprouted from the ground.  There is one type of life form that will flourish despite this.  These are the geophytes (first mentioned in my September blog on the squill).  These underground bulbs have stored the rains from last year’s amazing winter and we are now seeing the results this winter.

This first rain was enough to kick start the Sitvanit HaYoreh, the meadow saffron.  While walking my dog in the forest it has been a delight to stumble across these delicate little flowers peeping up out of the forest floor.  They are a stark contrast to the thick layer of brown pine needles. The flower is varying shades of pink with a very strong yellow stamen (pollen) verging on orange. It is quite unusual in that there is no green stalk and no leaves so the flower literally grows straight out of the ground and the stalk is the same color as the petals.  Growing up to 5 centimetres high it stands out because the ground is still bare of any other greenery and this is important as most pollinators can’t see pink or red and are therefore attracted to this new growth.

Sitvanit comes from the Hebrew word stav, which means autumn. Literally the autumn of the first rains, a beautiful name for a beautiful flower. 

In English the meadow saffron is also referred to as the autumn crocus but amusingly it’s not actually from the crocus family and it’s not the origin of saffron!

Another name is ‘naked ladies’ because the flower grows before any leaves appear, similar to the squill.  The French call it the dames san chemise (ladies without a chemise) and in German it is known as nakende huren – naked whores!! The UK plantlife website refers to it as “A femme fatale of the wild flower world, as beautiful as it is deadly”.  The femme fatale is referring to its beauty but it is also one of the most poisonous flowers. In Arabic it is called the witch's oil lamp. It contains colchicines which are highly poisonous and are said to alter your DNA but like other toxins are used in medication, in this case for the treatment of gout (wasn’t that something that old English kings suffered from eating too much meat and drinking too much wine?) and rheumatic and arterial diseases.

Israel Mint Collection 

The poison deters most animals from eating it except our very determined largest rodent – the porcupine. In order to reach his potential weight of 17 kg and up to 1 meter in length he will chomp his way through just about anything. At least he doesn’t suffer from gout. I actually found porcupine poop next to the sitvanit but my photographer (my daughter Yasmin) refused to photograph it!

As November and this blog comes to a close I eagerly await some more rain as the landscape is again parched. However I have spotted the first leaves of the cyclamen peaking through and that is a teaser for my next blog.  Watch this space!

Photos: Yasmin Maissel