Atriplex halimus (known also by its common names: Mediterranean saltbush, sea orache, shrubby orache, silvery orache; ;
Description
The plant has small gray leaves up to long. It resembles
Chenopodium berlandieri (lamb's quarters).
Distribution and habitat
The plant is widespread through the Mediterranean Basin,
North Africa 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 because of its tolerance for severe conditions of drought, and it can grow easily in very Alkali soil and Soil salinity 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 (),
[Mistranslated as "Malva" in the King James Bible and as Nesseln (Urtica) in the Luther Bible] 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.
[Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 66a, RASHI ibid., s.v. מלוחים.] Other classical Hebrew sources put the
Mishnah name of this edible plant as
faʻfōʻīn (), a plant that is explained to mean
qaqūlei in
Aramaic,
[Babylonian Talmud ( Erubin 28a, Rashi s.v. פעפועין); ibid. ( Kiddushin 66a, Rashi s.v. מלוחים); Jerusalem Talmud ( Peah 8:4, where the plant faʻfōʻīn is identified as קקולי)] said to be the
al-qāqlah (القاقلة) in Arabic.
[See the Judeo-Arabic lexicon compiled by Rabbi Tanḥum ben Joseph Ha-Yerushalmi (c. 1220–1291), entitled Murshid al-Kāfī (Bodleian Library MS. Huntington 621, frame 212r), where he explains פעפ"ע as meaning al-qāqlah (القاقلة), a plant identified as the shrubby orache ( Atriplex halimus) in .][Cf. ]
The Greek comic poet Antiphanes seemingly calls it halimon and refers to foraging for it in dry torrent beds.[fr. 158 Kassel-Austin]
The plant is mentioned again in the Middle Ages by Ishtori Haparchi in his 14th-century work Kaftor va-Ferach (Hebrew language: כפתור ופרח), noting that it grows in the Jordan Valley region.
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