Carmel presents us with flowers in all seasons. In this column we will always present one of the Carmel flowers, at the same time as it appears in the field, and you will be invited to visit it in one of the places where it blooms.

Broken bottle

A biennial plant, with a branching, upright inflorescence stem, its flowers are yellow, and are 150-120 cm tall. Butzin means candle (in Aramaic), and the name resembles the yellow flower, which is borne on an upright stem - like a candle flame.

In its first year, it only produces leaves in the rosette, and they are green all summer long. The rosette leaves at the base of the plant are broad and spread out on the ground, measuring 50-30 cm long.

In its second year, in the spring, it puts up a leafless inflorescence stalk, which splits into many diagonal stems with the flowers along them. The stem is branched like a lamp (some suggest that it, and not just sage, was the plant that served as a model for the Temple lamp).

The spiky sedge blooms in spring and summer, from April to November, mainly from May to July. The calyx is short, 3 mm long. The corolla is cylindrical, up to 2.5 cm in diameter. The five petals are spread, almost symmetrical, and fused at their bases. The flower has 5 stamens with large kidney-shaped pollinators, the stamens are covered with long purple hairs. The life span of a single flower is less than a day. The spiky sedge does not produce nectar, but offers its visitors an abundance of pollen. The plant's pollinators are various types of bees. The fruit is a small globose fruit, shorter than the calyx that surrounds it.

The common cinquefoil is probably the most common of the cinquefoil species in Israel, and its distribution is very wide. It is especially common along roadsides, in wastelands, and in garbage dumps. It grows in almost all regions of the country, except for the southern Negev and the heights of Mount Hermon, but especially in the Mediterranean region, in the mountains, and in the coastal plains of northern and central Israel.

ID

A place to meet the flower of the week

• Drive on Abba Khushi road towards the southeast
• Immediately after the pedestrian bridge to the university, turn right (south) to Tallim parking lot
• Continue about 200 m to the parking lot (located on the left of the road)
• After the parking lot, a paved road begins, go down it (on foot or by car) for about 100 m, until the place where the road turns south (from here there is no more entrance by car).

Continue along the footpath, with scattered blooms of the botsin along the perimeter path, mainly on its western side, until it meets the road leading to Haibar.

If you go to visit the flower with children, you can tell them the legend of the broken egg.

The Legend of the Broken Egg

Once upon a time, in a faraway and magical land, flowers of all kinds, colors, and shapes grew. There were red fire poppies, pink cyclamens, snow lilies, and even sunflowers that laughed at the sun every morning. But the flower that stood out above them all was the broken-up crocus.

The primrose was tall, really tall – taller than any other flower in its vicinity. Its branching, upright stem rose to a height of over a meter. Its petals were yellow like the sun’s rays. But despite its height and beauty, the primrose was lonely. The other flowers were much shorter than it, and every time it tried to talk to the poppies, or share a secret with the cyclamen, they simply did not hear it:
"What did you say, Botzin?" called the cyclamen from below.

"I said I saw an owl flying over the forest!" the owl replied loudly, but the wind carried his voice and he disappeared.

The botzin began to think that perhaps he was too tall. "If I were shorter, I could talk to everyone," he thought sadly.

One night, as the moon looked down from the sky, a little, sparkling fairy appeared.
 "Dear Butzin," she whispered, "I heard your thoughts."
The fairy smiled. "Can you cut me short?" he asked hopefully.

"But if you shorten yourself, you won't be able to see everything you see now – the forest, the sunset, the flight of the eagles."

The flower thought for a moment. He really had seen so many things that the other flowers had not seen.
Suddenly an idea occurred to him: the next day, the bee called all the flowers and said: "Listen, dear neighbors, from now on, every evening, I will tell you everything I saw from my height during the past day."

And he began to tell stories – about the rabbit that jumped through the bushes, about the rain that was about to come, about the sun that was slowly setting in the sky. The flowers listened to him, fascinated. Since then, the stork became the daily storyteller about the events that happened around him. Although he remained tall, he was no longer alone!

And so the butcher learned, and taught everyone: Even if you are different – ​​you have something special to contribute and give to your environment.