By Donald H. Harrison

ENCINITAS, Calif..— Through the ages and in various civilizations, gardens have been planted as special places of meditation, where man and nature can be brought into harmony.  In the Quail Botanical Gardens, one also can find a plant species here or there that will bring to mind sections of the Jewish Bible, or Tanach.

There are enough fruit trees in the gardens to furnish a Tu B'Shevat seder.  However, while taking my cousins Marc and Cynthia Yaffe of Maryland to a growing tourist attraction on Monday, May 21,  I found myself focusing on other kinds of biblical plants.

In the garden's Middle Eastern section, for example, one finds acacia trees, or shitim in Hebrew, which Torah identifies as the wood which God chose for the Tabernacle. In  Exodus 26:15, God commands, "You shall make planks of the Tabernacle of acacia wood, standing erect. Ten cubits the length of each plank, and a cubit and a half the width of each plank..."

In my Stone edition of the Tanach, there is a footnote addressing the issue of how all those acacia trees got into the Sinai Desert.  It reads: "According to Midrash Tanchuma cited by Rashi (v. 15), the Patriarch Jacob anticipated the need for such lumber in the Wilderness. He planted these trees in Egypt and instructed his children to take the wood with them when they left their exile."

Later, after the Ten Commandments were received at Mount Sinai, Exodus 37:1 relates that "Bezalel made the Ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height."  

Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible, edited by Geoffrey Wigoder, observes that "the most common species (of acacia) found today in the Sinai  Peninsula is a thorny tree with yellow flowers Its trunk is generally thin and this makes it difficult to identify with the acacia of the Bible..."

Nowadays, more people probably have  Raiders of the Lost Ark,  the 1981 movie starring Harrison Ford, as a frame of reference for imagining this holy vessel than they do this particular passage from scripture.  No matter, here at Quail Botanical Gardens, if one is so inclined, one may imagine the acacias planted by Jacob, fashioned by Bezalel or sought by "Indiana Jones," the character portrayed by Harrison Ford.

In the Africa section of Quail Botanical Gardens one can find a sycamore fig tree sapling, which Dave Ehrlinger, the chief horticulturalist, notes has a soft wood, easy to work. In biblical days, "they didn't have fancy tools , so the soft wood was what they wanted," he said.  "The Prophet Amos was a tender of figs."

The Stone edition of the Tanakh words that a little differently.  In 7:14, Amos declares that he is not a professional prophet but rather "I am a cattle herder and an examiner of sycamores."

Tending?  Examining?  What's it all about?  Ehrlinger explained that sycamores have a more difficult  time reproducing than trees of other species. "Male flowers have to pollinate the female flowers, but not on the same tree, or it won't pollinate, so there was a specialized group of people like him (Amos) who would go around from farm to farm and they knew how to do the pollination... In addition he probably  pruned and fertilized them."

Amos and other sycamore specialists must have done a good job, particularly in the Negev and along the coastal plain because they were the basis of a simile for growing in abundance. The Concordance reports that King Solomon "made cedars as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland (1 Kgs 10:27).

Before joining the Quail Botanical Gardens staff four years ago, Ehrlinger worked at the Cincinnati Zoo, where, thanks in large measure to the Jewish community there, they have a biblical garden.  

During our walk through the gardens, Ehrlinger also spoke with me about the "Jerusalem sage " He was not referring to King David nor to King Solomon, although surely the latter may have deserved the nickname.  He was talking about a popular name for a shrub which blooms with yellow flowers and which is not a sage at all but a member of the mint family bearing the scientific name phlomis fruticosa.

Despite its romantic common name, the Jerusalem sage does not get a word in the Tanakh, although there are references in Christian Scripture to mint. Ehrlinger said that "the true sage has been grown in Israel for thousands of years, just as these old-time agriculturalists thousands of year ago grew, for culinary and medicinal purposes, thyme, rosemary, and lavender."

To learn more about the Jerusalem sage, I went online to the B&T World Seed catalogue and learned that there are three plant species referred to by that name: Phlomis fruticosa, Pulmonaria officinalis and Salvia hierosolymitana.  Pulmonaria is so named because it looks like lung tissue.  Salvia refers to sage.  Hmm, a mint, a lung tissue-like plant, a sage;I found myself wondering which one might be Orthodox, which Conservative and which Reform.  

Julian Duval, executive director of the Quail Botanical Gardens, said getting people back in touch with nature is a paramount mission.  A former vice president for botanical collections for the Indianapolis Zoo, he came to Encinitas about a year after a non-profit organization agreed to administer the gardens, which previously had been tended by the San Diego County government.  With the county in a budget crunch, the gardens were not being kept up properly.

The gardens, named for a bird which frequented the area, had been owned by Charles and Ruth Larabee during the first half of the 20th century.  Following their divorce, Ruth Larabee deeded 30-acres and their modest home in 1956 to the San Diego County government, which didn't open the gardens for regular public visits until 1971.  Bamboo species imported to California were quarantined for a year at the Quail Botanical Gardens to guard against the introduction of new pests that might attack cereal crops in the state.  The American Bamboo Society was founded at these gardens in 1979.                                  Ehrlinger and Duval

After Duval's arrival in 1995,  he began renovating the gardens.  He created a Canary Islands area from plants native to that island chain off the Atlantic Coast of North Africa.  Next he created a bamboo display garden, then a subtropical fruit area, and, after that, a tropical rain forest area, built around a small waterfall feature already on the property. In one area of the gardens would pass through acres of indigenous coastal sage and would ask "when are you planning to do something here?"  Duval said he realized that visitors needed to be educated that the plants from this region were as interesting as plants from elsewhere.

He helped to create a "native plants, native people" exhibit, in which visitors learn not only about the plants but how the Kumeyaay Indians of San Diego County utilized those plants.  Jane Dumas, a Kumeyaay elder, showed Duval and his staff the gardens in a way he had never seen them before, stopping here and there to explain the different uses for various plants, ranging from use in baskets, huts and other weavings to herbs, medicines, seasonings and food staples.

"Seeds of Wonder," a garden where children can wander around amid fanciful sculptures and topiary is one of Duval's favorite projects because he believes the gardens can inculcate children with a love for nature.  When he was a boy, he said, children used to play outside. Today, they seem to prefer to play indoors with computers and other electronics, and, as a result, go outside very seldom.  "Why do you think we have so much obesity?" he asks. 

The most recent garden to be created showcases succulents which store water and are fire-resistant.  Fires always are a concern in Southern California, where native chaparral tends to dry into tinder during the summer months.  The roofs of two utility buildings are covered with succulents t demonstrate how one of the most vulnerable parts of a structure can be protected from wildfires.  Not only that, says Duval, but the rooftop succulent gardens prevent water from running off the roofs to the sewers and then out to sea, thereby reducing pollution in the ocean.

So far, he said, insufficient attention has been given to the Middle Eastern garden.  However, he said, thinking aloud, both the Indianapolis Zoo and Cincinnati Zoo had biblical gardens.  Maybe that is an idea worth pursuing.  

Admission to the facility, easily reached by going east  from the Encinitas Boulevard exit of Interstate 5, is $8 for most adults, $5 for seniors, military personnel and students, and $3 for children under 12.  The Quail Botanical Gardens are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..  Its website is www.qbgardens.org