''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 ...

shrub A shrub or 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 by their multiple ...

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, maki ...

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 plant, annual herbaceous plant in the family Amaranthaceae. The species is widespread i ...

'' (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 (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

and the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

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 m ...

because of its tolerance for severe conditions of

drought A drought is a period of 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, ...

, and it can grow easily in very

alkaline In chemistry, an alkali (; from the Arabic word , ) is a basic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a soluble base has a pH greater than 7.0. The ...

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 was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurre ...

(c. 352 BCE) to build the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

. Other classical Hebrew sources put the

Mishnaic The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

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

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, 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. The plant is mentioned again in the Middle Ages by

Ishtori Haparchi Ishtori Haparchi (1280–1355), also Estori Haparchi and Ashtori ha-Parhi () is the pen name of the 14th-century Jewish physician, geographer, and traveller, Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses.''Encyclopedia Judaica'' Keter, Jerusalem, 1972, "Estori Ha-Parch ...

in his 14th-century work ''Kaftor va-Ferach (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: כפתור ופרח)'', he notes that it was grows in the Jordan Valley region.

References

External links

Plants For A Future: ''Atriplex halimus''

halimus Halimus or Halimous (, 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 city of Athens. It ha ...

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