Human Flower Project
Star of the Holy Land
A floral survivor in the Middle East springs from symbolic cells.
Ranunculus asiaticus
From Charles Darwin to the panderers who designed “Survivor,” the TV show, curious people want to know why some species endure and others vanish.
Dr. Rina Kamenetsky, a researcher at Israel’s Volcani Institute, was looking into these very questions in studying ranunculus asiaticus, a hardy desert flower, and one of the few that can survive the 60 C./140 F. days of a Middle Eastern summer. She “discovered that the storage roots of this particular Persian buttercup have a special mechanism for resisting drought and heat that is found in no other plant to date,” and furthermore, under a microscope the cells of the root “assume the form of interlocking Stars of David.”
Kamenetsky said that this cell structure keeps the plant “from being flooded in the winter, while absorbing enough water to sustain it,” and notes that the Hebrew word for Star of David is “shield”—a good description of how this plant’s unique root-cell structure works.
“It really is symbolic,” she said.
Indeed it is. We might also note that this same lovely plant, known as “nurit” in Hebrew, has many other common names, among them “Persian buttercup,” “turban buttercup,” and “resurrection plant” which clearly allude to other ethnic and religious traditions. Some sources even describe this species as “invasive”—a weed.
Symbols are protean. The more curious you become about them, the slipperier they grow. We found, with a little proto-research today that while the so-called “Star of David” is now firmly associated with Judaism, the six-sided star (still popular among snowflakes) was in earlier days an Arab and Muslim symbol as well.
Called the Seal of Solomon, it “was used by Muslims from India to Spain to adorn and decorate the bottom of drinking vessels, coins issued by various dynasties, decorations on mosques and other buildings.” Christian churches in St. Petersburg, Russia, also bear the six-sided star.
Thank you, Dr. Kamenetsky. Ranunculus asiaticus suggests that “survival” in the Middle East is a many-splendored legacy.