At this time of year I can’t help noticing that the season is changing, we’re on the cusp from Israel’s hot and dry summer to cooler weather and autumn rains (I have even had to start wearing socks). Plants also notice this change. One small flowering plant, with bright yellow flowers (Sternbergia clusiana, חלמונית, from the same Hebrew root as egg yolk) has also noticed the change and pushes a small shoot up through the dry earth and using all its pent up energy blooms. If you know where to go you can see them. One place is the nahal, a dry stream bed, just down from Maale Rehavam, a small Jewish village established in 2001 on land belonging to Nokdim (another settlement in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank) tucked behind Herodium.

Though Sternbergia looks like crocus they belong to the daffodil family, and are not related to the saffron and crocus that bloom after the first rains. If you are interested in hiking to see and/or photograph wildflowers in Israel I would be happy to take you.