Since the idea of a Biblical garden has always fascinated me, I was naturally delighted to discover a garden designed around the familiar plants of the Bible in the grounds adjoining a Church in California. The low-eaved church, which is an architectural jewel in itself, makes an impressive setting for the garden which has two entrances, one from a porch which is an outside approach to the church parlors and another from the street, a rather formal one of paved brick with low retaining walls. Built into one of the walls is a stone seat above which is a stone cross and the words “Rest and be thankful.”
Planned by Mr. Butler Sturtevant, who has used brick and sand walks with charming informality, this garden contained numerous plants referred to in the Bible. Cypress trees mark the south boundary of the garden and there are tall shittim trees, with their willow – like foliage, smooth bark and great clusters of yellow blossoms. It seems that students of the Bible all agree that the shittim tree is one of the acacias.
From this wood, the Ark of the Covenant and the furniture of the Tabernacle were made. One may turn to the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus for the complete directions for their construction as given to Moses by God himself.
Most of us as children, when we heard the story of the Prodigal Son’s eating the husks, probably wondered just what they were, so I was glad to see how mistaken my childish idea had been. The husks were the beans of the carob tree, Ceralonia siligua, which looks much like the holly; the leaves are smooth but the edges rippled a bit. New leaves are light green in color but the older ones are very dark. The curved pods, filled with beans, are flattened and from ten to six inches long. This tree is valuable for its shade and the edible pod, which to this day is used for feeding cattle and pigs.
A twenty-foot cedar of Lebanon, Cedrus libani, fills one corner of the garden with its graceful outline. Standing before it, I was glad indeed that I was not present to see the destruction caused when Solomon gave orders for wood of these picturesque trees to be used in the construction of his temple. Here, too, is the tamarisk which in Bible days was very common in the dry sections of Palestine. Many of us know this as a shrub, but in our hot dry states, as in the Holy Land, it grows to be a large tree. Tamarix pentandra and T. tetrandra are the two grown in this garden. The oil tree or oleaster, Elaeagnus angustifolia, is often called the wild olive or Russian olive. The bark is smooth and gray and the simple leaf which is about two inches long and three-fourths of an inch wide is green on its upper surface and very gray on the underside. The wood is fine grained and possibly was also used in the building of Solomon’s temple. An outstanding tree here, as in any garden. It is often planted in seaside gardens because of its tolerance of wind and dry conditions.
A flourishing pomegranate, Punica granalum, has its place in this quaint garden. The smooth, high sheen of the foliage makes a superb backdrop for the crumpled petals of the orange-red blossoms. Even the fruit is colorful and shapely; little wonder that it is spoken of many times in the Bible – both as a fruit and as a design for ornamentation. Beside it grows the fig, Ficus carica. Sometimes a shrub, sometimes a tree, this Bible plant was as frequently mentioned by the ancients as the pomegranate, and its fruit and leaf designs as commonly seen. Near the fig is the myrtle, Myrtus commuitis, a shrub perhaps six feet tall with pointed, shiny leaves and white, cherry-like blossoms, borne singly at the axils of the leaves.
Trailing along the railing of the porch is a grape vine, Vitis vinifera, which is said to be the one producing the best grapes for wine. While I did not see any fruit, the vine made a perfect background for the citron, Citrus medial, a small tree with irregular, thorny branches and lemon-like foliage and fruit. A hardy evergreen in the Lebanon Mountains where it grows twenty feet or more in height is the box-tree, Buxus scmpervirens, better known to us as a trim hedge plant or specimen shrub.
Its neat, glossy leaves are typical of the foliage so characteristic of many of the Palestine plants which flourish in this garden.
Myrrh, Commiphora myrrha, is present also. This is a very graceful and beautiful tree with fern-like foliage, but it is the gum of the bark that has so many uses and is valuable commercially.
These trees did not grow in Palestine but to the South and were brought there. Myrrh was an ingredient of the holy oil.
Among the herbs represented is rue, Rota graveolens, about three feet tall with its yellow blossoms and gray-green foliage showing a great heap of airy beauty. This plant was subject to
a tithe by the Pharisees. Another herb, mentioned in Isaiah as being threshed with a rod so as to not bruise the seeds, is the cumin, Cuminunt cyminum, a member of the parsley family. While dill is not mentioned in the Bible, it is thought that the word anise should have been translated dill, so a clump of dill is growing at the turn in the path. It is all of four feet high with yellow blossoms on bamboo-like stalks and feathery foliage. There are several mints found in Palestine, but Mentha sylvestris is the only one for which I found a label of identification. It is the wild horse mint which we all know as a roadside flower.
In the rear of the garden, the winding paths are of sand edged with bricks and along the borders and under the trees are the lower-growing plants. There are great clusters of rock rose, species of cistus, with their single, rose-like blossoms of white, rose or red with a dark spot at the base of the petals. I was surprised to find marigolds; yet they belong to the flowers that grow wild in Palestine. In fact there are great numbers of wild flowers growing there that were not mentioned in the Bible by name, but referred to as flowers of the field. Those best known to us are the rose, the lily (which is believed to be Anemone coronaria) although the red Turk’s-cap lily adds its color to the daisies, lupins. larkspurs, violets. nigella, hyacinths and crocuses. Palestine is rich in its variety of wild flowers and it is possible that many more were represented in this garden. Some, of course, would have been resting when I visited the garden in August. and there are many unidentified.
Because of impressions gained as a child from pictures of Moses as he lay hidden in the rushes, I was greatly surprised to find that the bulrush then common in Egypt was Cyperus papyrus, a tall reed. In its form this plant has much the appearance of the umbrella plant, Cyperus alternifolius, but is much finer, almost hair-like and taller. The top growth is so dense that it is no wonder it was used as a hiding place for the babe. Of considerable economic value, the pulp of the reed was used for making paper in those early times, and the stems and leaves for weaving baskets. The giant reed, Arundo donax, is a tall plant that grows along the shores of the waterways of Palestine. It is a green and white striped grass, six feet tall giving the color effect of gray with a creamy edge. Unusually sturdy, the stalks are mentioned in the Bible for use as measuring rods.
Building this garden was indeed a great project that I am sure will be well repaid for the efforts.
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