How was your olive day? Tales and confusion of the white squill

(Identity and symbolism of ‘chatzav’; August 2007, revised September 2024)

Another article on Torah Flora.org (“The olive tree, the post-Chanukah period, and Jewish unity”) described Tu b’Av, the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Av, and its commemorative and religious significance. This day marks the middle of summer and the time when olives in Israel begin to accumulate oil. The ripening of olives is nearly simultaneous throughout Israel’s geographic and climatic regions. In fact, the local Arabs refer to this day as Olive Day. For this reason, and because of several historical events that occurred on Tu b’Av, both the day and the olive tree have become symbols of Jewish unity.

The timing of flowering and ripening in olives are unusual in their relative insensitivity to climate. The white squill (Drimia maritima or Drimia aphylla, formerly Urginea maritima; in modern Hebrew, chatzav matsui) flowers during the olive ripening. Like the olive, it has accumulated a good deal of lore because it flowers at the same time throughout the land of Israel. This plant grows mostly in dry, sandy soils from its large, onion-like bulb, sending up a single narrow stalk covered by many small, white flowers.

The resemblance to onions led to one of its many English names, “sea onion.” Botanists originally placed white squill in the lily family, along with onions, garlic, chives, scallions and shallots. However, it has since been moved to the asparagus family, reflecting its closer relationship with asparagus, hostas, and spider plants. The white squill bulb, which can weigh several pounds, contains steroid-like compounds that have been used as rat poisons and heart drugs since ancient times. Its effect on the heart is similar to digoxin (found in digitalis extract), though much better and safer heart drugs are available today.

The ability of white squill to regenerate from its bulb after cutting or drought may have inspired its use as a planting to mark property lines. Indeed, the Talmud (Baba Batra 55a) describes this as a common practice, and states that Joshua planted it to delineate the borders of the tribes of Israel after the apportionment of the land (Baba Batra 56a). The toxic compounds in white squill can cause blistering irritation of the skin after handling the plant. This effect would discourage malicious individuals from uprooting the plant to obscure property lines, as forbidden in Deuteronomy 19:14. It is still used for this purpose in some rural Arab settlements.

The Hebrew name ‘chatzav’ given to this plant has the same root as the words for axe and hewing of wood or rock. This may reflect its ability to force its way into rocky soil by expanding its roots and bulb into small cracks, further breaking up the rocks. An example of this growth habit can be seen in this photo of white squill growing out of a rocky outcrop in the Negev desert.

However, some scholars of Aramaic, including Marcus Jastrow and Immanuel Low, have suggested that the chatzav of the Talmud is not white squill, but an unrelated plant, the rockrose (genus Cistus), which also grows on rocky, dry ground. Some support for this idea comes from the homiletic statement that attempts to uproot chatzav that has been planted along a property line are thwarted when it grows back from its deep roots. Rockrose shrubs can produce much longer, deeper root systems than the shallow bulb of white squill.

But if the chatzav of the Talmud and the chatzav of modern Hebrew are not the same plant, how did this confusion arise? The identities of many biblical plants, animals, and rocks are uncertain. When Hebrew returned to use as a daily language in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these names were assigned to common species in the land of Israel, in some cases with little evidence that the words were being used in their original senses. Chatzav may be one such word. If the fields and borders of Israel were originally marked by hedgerows of chatzav plants, the ambiguous meaning of this plant name in modern Hebrew becomes a beautiful realization of the metaphor of Song of Songs 7:3, which describes the beloved (homiletically interpreted as the people of Israel) as “a pile of wheat surrounded by shoshanim.” What are shoshanim? This term is variously translated as roses or lilies, so either the rockrose or the white squill ( a former member of the lily family) would satisfy the language of the verse. Take your pick, but not from your neighbor’s fence row!