''Atriplex halimus'' (known also by its common names: Mediterranean saltbush, sea orache, shrubby orache, silvery orache; ; also spelled orach) is a species of

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food g ...

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

in the family

Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...

Description

The plant has small gray leaves up to long. It resembles ''

Chenopodium berlandieri ''Chenopodium berlandieri'', also known by the common names pitseed goosefoot, lamb's quarters (or lambsquarters), and ''huauzontle'' ( Nahuatl) is an annual herbaceous plant in the family Amaranthaceae. The species is widespread in North Amer ...

'' (lamb's quarters).

Distribution and habitat

The plant is widespread through the

Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and w ...

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

and the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

Ecology

The leaves are a dietary staple for the sand rat (''

Psammomys obesus The fat sand rat (''Psammomys obesus'') is a terrestrial mammal from the gerbil subfamily that is mostly found in North Africa and the Middle East, ranging from Mauritania to the Arabian Peninsula. This species usually lives in sandy deserts, ...

'').

Uses

The leaves are edible. Extracts from the leaves have shown to have significant

hypoglycemic Hypoglycemia, also called low blood sugar, is a fall in blood sugar to levels below normal, typically below 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L). Whipple's triad is used to properly identify hypoglycemic episodes. It is defined as blood glucose belo ...

effects. The species has potential use in agriculture. A study allowed sheep and goats to voluntarily feed on ''A. halimus'' and aimed to determine if the saltbush was palatable, and if so, did it provide enough nutrients to supplement the diet of these animals. In this study they determined when goats and sheep are given as much ''A. halimus'' as they like, they do obtain enough nutrients to supplement their diet – unless the animal requirements are higher during pregnancy and milk production. This plant is often cultivated as

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...

because of its tolerance for severe conditions of

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

, and it can grow easily in very

alkaline In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a base (chemistry), basic, ionic compound, ionic salt (chemistry), salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as ...

and saline soils. In addition, it is useful to valorize degraded and marginal areas because it will contribute to the improvement of phytomass in this case.

Use in antiquity

According to Jewish tradition, the leaves of ''Atriplex halimus'' are known in biblical Hebrew (see: ) as ''maluaḥ'' (), and which are said to have been gathered and eaten by the poor people who returned out of

Babylonian exile The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...

(c. 352 BCE) to build the

Second Temple The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...

. Other classical Hebrew sources put the

Mishnaic The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...

name of this edible plant as ''faʻfōʻīn'' ( he, פעפועין), a plant that is explained to mean ''qaqūlei'' in

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, said to be the ''al-qāqlah'' (القاقلة) in Arabic. The Greek comic poet Antiphanes seemingly calls it halimon and refers to foraging for it in dry torrent beds.fr. 158 Kassel-Austin

References

External links

Plants For A Future: ''Atriplex halimus''

halimus Halimus or Halimous ( grc, Ἁλιμοῦς, Latin: Halmius) was a deme of ancient Athens, said to have been so called from τὰ ἅλιμα, sea-weeds, was situated on the coast between Phalerum and Aexone, at the distance of 35 stadia from the c ...

Flora of Europe Flora of Israel Flora of Lebanon Flora of North Africa Flora of Palestine (region) Flora of Morocco Forages Energy crops Flora of Western Sahara Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Amaranthaceae-stub