The Burning Bush - A Biblical Legend In Your Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Dictamnus or ash-tree - a plant from the Bible that decorates a garden

Among the great variety of garden flowers there are everyone's favorites, indispensable residents and outlandish plants, rare guests of the garden. I want to tell you about one of them - the burning bush.

This plant appeared in my garden relatively recently, but after a long search. It was difficult to find it on sale, and many growers have never heard of such a plant. And yet I purchased the dictamnus seeds. And a year later in my garden there were already three pink Caucasian and one white - ash bushes.

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Diktamnus or ash-tree most often grows in light forests, on forest edges, among shrubs, or on rocky and grassy slopes. The plant is very stable in culture, they thrive both in full sun and in partial shade, but develops better in dry places and on any cultivated soils. Moreover, in one place an ash tree can live for a very long time.

About six species of this plant are known, growing in temperate and subtropical regions of Eurasia. Diktamnus is a perennial herb up to 90 cm high. Leaves are pinnate, similar to ash leaves, hence its second name. Large, white, pink, reddish, lilac flowers are collected in racemose inflorescences. The fruit is a capsule with black, shiny seeds, which contain a large amount of essential oils that are released during the period of seed ripening.

Ash belongs to the Rutaceae family, a characteristic feature of which is the presence of numerous glandular points in the leaves, where essential oils are formed, carrying a strong aroma. In the ash tree, they cover the entire plant, and so abundantly that in hot, windless weather, the ether that has saturated the air around it can ignite from a lit match or even ignite spontaneously.

In Central Asia and Western Siberia, the narrow-leaved ash tree grows, which local residents call a gas, or burning plant.

Ancient Slavic legends say that with the torches of an ash tree, flowers dance in circles at night. Lilies of the valley, cornflowers, asters, carnations, tulips, roses and other flowers will gather on the lawn, set a dozen or two ash trees on fire and have fun quietly … that the stars begin to blink in surprise.

This is probably the most beautiful sight that, unfortunately, no one has ever seen.

The Bible says that one day Moses, wandering with his flocks along the Sinai Plateau, came across Mount Horeb. And suddenly he saw a miracle: a roadside thorn bush flashed before him, and “the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a thorn bush. And he saw that the thorn bush was burning with fire, but the bush did not burn. Moses stood shocked. According to the Bible, this burning and non-burning bush was called the burning bush.

For a long time it was not possible to find the burning bush. When many botanists already believed that this is pure fiction, fantasy, this biblical plant was discovered on the Sinai Peninsula.

It was called diptam or Moses bush. One copy of this plant was brought home by Polish scientists and planted in the mountain-steppe reserve in Skorotitsy. On one hot summer day, Moses' bush suddenly burst into flames with a bluish fire and did not burn. Many Polish Catholics took this phenomenon as a miracle.

The aroma of steppe grasses in a thick cloud covers dry lands and slopes of ravines, and this aroma is given to plants by essential oils, similar to volatile vapors. Plants enveloped in these vapors evaporate less moisture and are protected from the harmful effects of sultry rays.

Another purpose of essential oils is to scare away animals. Many plants have no thorns, no hard pubescence, and they can only drive away animals from themselves by smell.

Especially dense vapors of ether in the thickets of ash. Ash-grass, fragrant ash, ash-tree - this is how people in different areas call plants with ash leaves. He is also magnified by the king-grass and ether for the extraordinary properties of the flower to ignite. Therefore, the ash tree belongs to pyrophyte plants - a group of plants that need fires: the fire thinns their crown and fertilizes the soil with ash.

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The scientific name of the white ash tree is Diktamnus albus, which literally means "punishing bush". The ether vapors released by it can even cause burns.

BP Tokin in his book "Healing Poisons of Plants" notes: "Some species of this plant - Caucasian and Tien Shan - especially attract attention. It is reported that skin burns appear not only when the plant is held in their hands, but sometimes people get burns if they approach the plant at a distance of one or two meters.

In culture, two types are common: white and Caucasian. The rest, unfortunately, are practically not found in our gardens. At the same time, the ash tree is pollinated by bees and is an excellent honey plant, and during the flowering period from late June to early July, the ash tree can be considered one of the most beautiful perennials among other flowering plants.

We love our handsome man very much, and we tell all guests about the ancient legends and tales associated with him. Every year it grows and blooms more and more magnificently and more luxuriously, without burning or punishing those who admire it.