I am grateful to the staff of the Hula Valley Nature Reserve for granting special permission to collect Papyrus, from this it’s last fully native stronghold in Israel and one of its most northerly populations in the world. Collecting at this site is strictly controlled, because the Papyrus, once more than a mile deep in this area, remains in thin quantities.
Catastrophic die back
The Hula Valley Nature reserve is about 400ha of wetland habitats. Once dominated by huge stands of Papyrus, rapid die-back between 2001 and 2008, described as catastrophic because of its scale – from 51 to just 6 ha, has left only a fringe of the plants around the lake margin.
Papyrus fringe on Lake Hula, with invasive Lythrum salicaria L. prominent.
Papyrus is flourishing in the carefully maintained water-table conditions of the Hula Valley Nature Reserve. The Golan Heights in the background.
The causes of the die back are not certain, Nitrogen deficiency is considered to have been a limiting nutrient in the prevailing edaphic conditions, but how this occurred is not clearly understood. Catastrophic diebacks are not uncommon for wetlands and have occurred even in the Hula Valley previously – Typha domingensis Pers. suffered such soon after the re-flooding and re-population of Lake Agamon.
Chiovenda in 1931 named the Papyrus that occurs in Israel Cyperus antiquorum (Willd.) Chiov. var. palaestinae Chiov. The species C. antiquorum he recognised as occurring in a belt across Africa roughly between the Sahara and the equator. Of all the species he segregated from Papyrus, it has the broadest distribution. He described the Israeli material as distinct from the norm for the species on morphology and geography grounds, and also distinct from C. papyrus sensu stricto, which occurs (now) only in Sicily. Kükenthal a few years later (1936) preferred to rank C. antiquorum as a subspecies of C. papyrus, but still recognised var. palaestinae, though as a variety of the subspecies.
One ongoing objective of our broad-ranging study of Papyrus is to establish evidentially the validity and status of the different segregate taxa of Papyrus recognised by Chiovenda and Kükenthal. Papyrus plays a major role in the ecology of the Hula Valley and is a prominent, beautiful and iconic species there. Our work may help in its conservation by shining a light on its genetic variation and relationships to Papyrus from across its distribution. It may yet add uniqueness to its other virtues.
No need for searching here, or wading, or cutting through thickets. There are clearly marked trails, including walkways above the lake margin that lead straiht into the Papyrus stands.
4 duplicates were collected, only with permission of the HVNR authorities.
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