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Tough characters take root in Dead Sea area, celebrated by a new plant guide By Zafrir Rinat Tags: Dead sea, Israel The very name "Dead Sea," commonly used to denote the body of water and its surroundings, refers to the absence of flora and fauna in the area due to its high degree of salinity. There is no life in the Dead Sea with the exception of bacteria and microorganisms. The common name, however, does an injustice to the rich biological diversity in the area. A new guide, "Flowers of Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea Coast" (in Hebrew), just published by the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority and the Levant Nature Conservation Society, reveals numerous wild plants for the first time. The book also indicates that extinction threatens some of the plants, not because of the harsh climatic conditions, but due to man-made development and construction. The new guide, written by Dr. Ori Fragman-Sapir of the Hebrew University Botanical Gardens in Jerusalem, includes 211 plant species, one quarter of all the species in the Dead Sea region. Fragman-Sapir says that although this is a desert region, it also boasts a large number of springs, bird-migration routes, flash floods of rainwater and many landscapes shaped by man over thousands of years. The book presents, for the first time, photographs of rare plants such as the Iphiona maris-mortui. Advertisement Fragman-Sapir adds that one of the singular characteristics of the regional flora is their ability to adapt to harsh conditions such as low rainfall and highly saline soil. "One of the typical characteristics of the regional flora is small leaves or no leaves at all," he says. "The small surface area enables the plant to lose less water." In addition, many of the plants are succulents (with thick, water-filled leaves and stems), and the storage of water helps to dilute the large amount of salt absorbed from the soil and to enable the plant to breathe. One of the plants with the most impressive ability to adapt is Trigonella stella. The hard pods of this plant protect the seeds from being eaten by animals. They also function as a type of rain meter and release some of the seeds when they become wet. Many of the plants of the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi are used for medicinal purposes. For example, the common Zygophyllum dumosum is used by the Bedouin as external treatment for infections and skin irritations. A powder produced from the seeds of Moringa peregrina is used to purify water. Human activity is endangering many plant species. This is particularly blatant in the Ein Gedi region, which has large numbers of hikers, overgrazing by gazelles and hyraxes and cultivated plants that compete with the natural ones. Another region that has been harmed is the salt flats adjacent to the Dead Sea whose soil contains a high concentration of salts. These areas were harmed by the construction of pools for the salt industry, the paving of roads and the creation of agricultural areas. The threat to the flora of the Dead Sea region has created one of the most interesting projects in Israel in the field of nature preservation: a nursery established by the ecologist of the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, Michael Blecher, who raises rare plants there, thereby preventing their disappearance. "This is a project that constitutes an important breakthrough in the rescue of rare plants," says Fragman-Sapir. "It creates sustainable populations in nature and back-up populations in cultivated gardens." In the nursery for wild plants Blecher has succeeded in germinating seeds of the rare plant Capparis decidua, which were brought from Jordan, thus restoring the plant to the Ein Gedi region from which it had disappeared. Another very rare plant is Maerua crassifolia, which dried up and all but disappeared around Ein Gedi; only isolated bushes are left in Israel. After complex research botanists succeeded in germinating maerua plants in Ein Gedi, and today the plant can be seen at the entrance to Nahal Arugot and along the promenade on the Dead Sea shore. However, this nursery will not be sufficient if the natural habitats to which the plants can be returned are not preserved as well - for example, the salt flats south of the Dead Sea, which are fast disappearing. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Jet error Israeli warplanes come close to shooting down Tony Blair's plane. Rehab (live) Report: Singer Amy Winehouse is to undergo drug rehab in Israel.

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