Azraq, Flora

Azraq Flora, jordan

	Scientific name: Atriplex halimus Family: Chenopodiaceae English common name: Saltbush, Tall Orache, and Spanish Sea Purslane Arabic common name: Kataf milhi >> more

	Scientific name: Citrullus colocynthis Family: Cucurbitaceae Common English name: vine of Sodom, bitter apple Common Arabic name: Hanthal >> more

Scientific name: Atriplex halimus

Family: Chenopodiaceae
English common name: Saltbush, Tall Orache, and Spanish Sea Purslane
Arabic common name: Kataf milhi

It is fairly tasty plant! Shepherds as well as their flocks enjoy eating salt it. Salt bush is a shrub that grows throughout the Mediterranean region. Atriplex plants have a particularly high nitrogen content, vitamins C, A, and D, and minerals such as chromium. This plant can be successfully grown in areas where the soil quality is of a poor quality, ie lacking in sufficient nutrients. As its name suggests, it is especially common in areas where the soil is saline. Saltbush may prove useful in the treatment of type-2 diabetes (non-insulin-dependent or adult onset). This idea came to the attention of medical researchers in 1964, when they discovered that a rodent called the sand rat is highly susceptible to developing diabetes. Yet wild sand rats, which regularly consume saltbush, never show any signs of diabetes, they tend to develop it in response to being fed regular laboratory food! As a result, scientists have explored the possibility that saltbush has an ant diabetic effect. It is common in the arid areas of the Jordan rift valley, southern and eastern deserts.

Scientific name: Citrullus colocynthis Family: Cucurbitaceae Common English name: vine of Sodom, bitter apple Common Arabic name: Hanthal
		If you imagine a watermelon vine bearing a small, hard fruit with a bitter pulp, almost as big as an orange, you will have a very close idea to the colocynth plant. Despite the vast areas that the plant occupies, extending form west coast of northern Africa as far as Ceylon, the plant grows abundantly between the mountains of Palestine and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, for all it's requirements are available being merely, sandy soils, warm climates and little moisture. The fruit is collected in July and August, before it is quite ripe, peeled and the pulp is dried in the sun. It has been used since the time of the Assyrians as a purgative (See Citrullus colocynthis). The ancient Egyptians used to exorcise evil spirits by drinking it with wine, and to know whether a woman is fertile by introducing into her womb a mixture of colocynth and another woman's milk. This was based on a legend that the Egyptian god of chaos, Seth, once followed the beautiful great mother-goddess, Isis, and after he turned himself to a bull, he spread his semen angrily on the ground, and the colocynth plant sprouted.