Wr% 



quickly take over. They would crowd out 

 many of the flowers." And it is not the 

 grazing alone. The drastic fluctuation of 

 rain within the winter period and from 

 year to year reduces competition between 

 species, so that no one species can take 

 over and occupy every niche. What we 

 might generally consider unfavorable con- 

 ditions for plants are precisely those that 

 have produced tremendous diversity. 



As we descend farther into the valley, 

 we can see the hills of the desert greening 

 from the winter rains. From the window of 

 our car, I see patches of yellow composite 

 flowers, patches of light purple crucifers, 

 and some white umbellifers. Above the 



background of yellow, white, and pale 

 blue, there are also thick dots of red flow- 

 ers, like flecks of shiny red blood upon the 

 green. 



A pleasing wash of colors from a bird's- 

 eye view became a gorgeous mosaic when 

 we parked and I saw it from a bee's eye 

 level. But the beauty that was so striking to 

 the eye was even more fantastic to the 

 mind because behind the show lay a logic. 

 That logic — that competition among polli- 

 nators that had helped to arrange the floral 

 display — had first excited me two decades 

 ago and a continent away. Here in the 

 Judean desert was the same play, but all 

 the players were different. 



One step into this garden, which nature 

 had been busily arranging for thousands of 

 years (out of parts created over millions of 

 years), I found much to admire. I saw a 

 plant whose blue flowers had at their cen- 

 ter tiny dabs of either white or pink. The 

 dots were what Konrad Sprengler, the fa- 

 ther of pollination ecology, called Saftmale 

 (nectar guides). When white, they indicate 

 (to experienced nectar shoppers) that the 

 flowers are likely unvisited and contain 

 nectar; when pink, they signal that the 

 flowers are already drained (and hence 

 pollinated). 



I saw a small umbeUifer whose white 

 inflorescence with showy fringe florets 



55 



