Peganum harmala

 ( Anthelmintics ) 

In Kashmir and Ladakh it is known from elevations of 300–2400 metres (1000' to 7900'), in China 400–3600 metres (1300' to 12,000'), in Turkey 0–1500 metres (0' to 5000'), and in Spain 0–1200 metres (0' to 4000').

In China it grows in slightly saline sands near oases and dry grasslands in desert areas.

In Spain it can be found in abandoned fields, rubbish tips, stony slopes, along the verges of roads, ploughed and worked earth, as well as in disturbed, saline scrubland.

In Morocco it is said to grow in steppes, arid coasts, dry uncultivated fields and amongst ruins. A study in Morocco found that it could be used as an indicator species for rangeland degraded from agricultural activities, when found in association with certain Artemisia sp., Noaea mucronata and Anabasis aphylla. In Israel it is a common dominant plant along with Anabasis syriaca and Haloxylon scoparium in a low semi-shrubby steppe ecosystem which during dry years is almost devoid of plant cover, growing on saline, loess-derived soils. In rainy times Leontice leontopetalum and Ixiolirion tataricum appear here. It also grows in Israel in semi-steppe shrublands, Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands, and deserts. Between 800 and 1300 metres (2600' to 4300') elevation on the sandstone slopes of the mountains around Petra, Jordan, there is an open Mediterranean steppe forest dominated by Juniperus phoenicea and Artemisia herba-alba together with occasional trees of Pistacia atlantica and Crataegus aronia with common shrubs being Thymelaea hirsuta, Ephedra campylopoda, Ononis natrix, Hammada salicornia and Anabasis articulata; when this habitat is further degraded (it is already degraded) by overgrazing P. harmala along with Noaea mucronata invade. It is often found with Euphorbia virgata in the foothills of Mount Ararat, Iğdır Province, Turkey.

The flowers are pollinated by insects. Little is known about Pollination. A year-long study around the town of St. Katherine in the El-Tur mountains of southern Sinai Peninsula found P. harmala to be exclusively pollinated by the domesticated honey bee, Apis mellifera, although it is possible these animals are displacing native bees. The floral morphology, nectar amount and composition – high in hexane sugars, presence of toxic alkaloids and high proline content together suggest pollination by short-tongued bees (see pollination syndrome).

Regarding seed dispersal it is considered a . According to a Mongolian study, its seeds are exclusively dispersed by human activities, although Peganum multisectum, sometimes seen as a variety or synonym of this species, is dispersed solely by water flow.

A species of tiny, hairy beetle, Thamnurgus pegani, has been found inhabiting stems of P. harmala in Turkey and elsewhere. It feeds only on P. harmala. When the aerial parts of the plant begin to die off in the autumn, the adult beetles retreat to overwinter in the soil underneath the root-crown, or in old larval tunnels in the dead stems; emerging in the spring (May in Turkey), the females bore small holes in the now shooting stems of the plant, in which they lay their eggs. The hatched larvae bore inward toward the pith. The beetles somehow infect the surrounding tissue in the tunnels with a fungus, Fusarium oxysporum. The infected plant tissue turns blackish and is then used by the adult beetles and their larvae as a food source, until they are ready to pupate within the stem tunnels. It has been proposed as a candidate for using in biological control of P. harmala, as a relative of it, T. euphorbiae, has been approved for use against invasive Euphorbia in the United States.

This plant was first described in a recognisable manner under the name italic=no () by Dioscorides, who mentions it is called μῶλυ ( moly) in parts of Anatolia (although Dioscorides distinguishes the 'real' μῶλυ as another, bulbaceous plant). Galen later describes the plant under the name italic=no, following Dioscorides by mentioning numerous other names it was known by: italic=no, italic=yes (harmala), italic=no and in Syria italic=no, italic=yes (besasa). For much of the subsequent history of Europe Galen was seen as the pinnacle of human medical knowledge. As such, during the early Middle Ages, the herb was known as moly or italic=yes.

The 12th century Arab agriculturist Ibn al-'Awwam from Seville, Spain, wrote that the seeds were used in the baking of bread; the fumes being used to facilitate fermentation and help with the taste (he usually quotes older authors).

By the mid-16th century, Rembert Dodoens relates how apothecaries sold the plant under the name harmel as a type of extra-strength rue.

Traces of Peganum harmala, and Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea were identified in an ritual Bes-vase, of the 2nd century BCE.

In 1596, Gaspard Bauhin had his Phytopinax published in which he attempted to list all plants known in an ordered manner. He judges Ruta sylvestris Dioscorides to be a type of Hypericum. Later, in his Pinax Theatri Botanici of 1623, he attempts to sort the synonymy in all the previously published names by the botanists from earlier in history. In this work, he sorts Ruta into five species, distinguishing this plant from the others by its three-locular fruit, large white flowers and being only known as a wild plant (as opposed to cultivated). He considers his 'Ruta sylvestris flore magno albo' (= Peganum harmala) to be (not all writers named in the following): Tabernaemontanus', Dodoens' and Carolus Clusius Harmala; Matthias de l'Obel's Harmala syriaca; Andrea Cesalpino' and Conrad Gesner's (in his report on Ottoman empire plants) Harmel; Pietro Andrea Mattioli's and Clusius' (in another work) Ruta sylvestris Harmala; Valerius Cordus' (in his Annotations on Dioscorides), Gesner's (in his Hortus), and Aloysius Anguillara's Ruta sylvestris; and Castore Durante's and Joachim Camerarius the Younger's Ruta sylvestris secunda.

In 1753, Carl Linnaeus named the species Peganum harmala. He cites this species as based on Bauhin's Pinax Theatri Botanici of 1623, and Stirpium Historiae Pemptades Sex of 1583 by Rembert Dodoens.