''Atriplex halimus'' (known also by its common names: Mediterranean saltbush, sea orache, shrubby orache, silvery orache; ; also spelled orach) is a species of
fodder shrub 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 Ameri ...
'' (lamb's quarters).
Distribution and habitat
The plant is widespread through the
Mediterranean Basin,
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 or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north ...
and
East Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula.
Ecology
The leaves are a dietary staple for the sand rat (''
Psammomys obesus'').
Uses
The leaves are edible.
Extracts from the leaves have shown to have significant
hypoglycemic 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 ...
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 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 (c. 352 BCE) to build the
Second Temple. 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