Botanists have grown a long-lost tree species from a 1,000-year-old seed found in a cave in the Judean Desert in the 1980s.
The researchers involved in the project say they believe the tree species, which is thought to be extinct today, could have been the source of a healing balm mentioned in the Bible and other ancient texts.
Unearthed during an archaeological dig in the lower Wadi el-Makkuk region north of Jerusalem, the ancient seed was determined to be in pristine condition. But the scientists conducting the new research weren’t able to identify the type of tree from the seed alone. The team, led by Dr. Sarah Sallon, a physician who founded the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, planted the seed to further investigate more than a dozen years ago.
Sallon said it was possible that the tree could be the source of the biblical “tsori,” a medicinal plant extract associated with the historical region of Gilead north of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley, a mountainous and forested area that was intensely cultivated and is now part of Jordan.
The team’s findings, described in a study published September 10 in the journal Communications Biology, unlock some of the secrets surrounding the origins of this enigmatic specimen, which Sallon nicknamed “Sheba.”
Genetic fingerprint without a match
To germinate the specimen, study coauthor Dr. Elaine Solowey, a researcher emerita at the Center for Sustainable Agriculture at The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel, used a process perfected during previous research led by Sallon on 2,000-year-old date palm seeds. The approach involved soaking the mysterious Judean Desert seed in water mixed with hormones and fertilizer before planting it in a pot of sterile soil.
“About five and a half weeks later, up jumps this nice little shoot,” Sallon said.
Protecting the shoot tip was a caplike feature called an operculum. Once it had shed, the team used radiocarbon dating on the organic matter to estimate the plant’s age and found the specimen dated to between AD 993 and 1202.
Not long after, the tree began to sprout leaves. Sallon shared images of the tree and its leaves with botanists around the world. One expert suggested it belonged to the genus Commiphora. The group includes around 200 species of tree primarily found in Africa, Madagascar and the Arabian Peninsula.
Sallon next shared a sample from the leaf with study coauthor Dr. Andrea Weeks, an associate professor in the department of biology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Weeks sequenced the tree’s DNA, confirming the preliminary identification. However, the sample didn’t match any of the known Commiphora species in her database.
With its unique genetic fingerprint, the unknown Commiphora species most likely represented an extinct taxon once native to the region surrounding the Judean Desert, according to the study.
However, the tree, which is now more than 14 years old and almost 10 feet (3 meters) tall, has neither flowered nor borne fruit. Without these more easily identifiable features, it’s not possible to identify the cryptic species with certainty, the study added.
Biblical tree?
Based on historical research, Sallon had a hunch that the tree might be the source of what ancient texts from the region, including the Bible, describe as “Judean Balsam” or “Balm of Gilead” — a fragrant resin harvested to make a coveted perfume that was exported around the world at the time.
“We planted it in 2010 (and) it’s now 2024. Why did we wait so long (to publish the research)? Because I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t the Judean Balsam. And how would I definitively know that? By smelling it,” Sallon said.
Yet the tree, which is related to the myrrh tree that’s famed for its resin, never gave off any kind of scent. Once the plant was more mature at around 3 years old, the team conducted a phytochemical analysis on its resin, leaves and branches to test for aromatic compounds, such as those found in myrrh. However, there were none, Sallon said.
Instead, the team detected some compounds known for their medicinal use, including “guggulterols,” which have been identified from the resin of the related tree species Commiphora wightii as having potential cancer-fighting properties, the study noted.
“Based on all these things, it’s not the Judean balsam, it’s a close cousin of it, and one of the non-aromatic Commiphora that is a treasure chest of medicinal compounds,” she said.
Due to the presence of those healing compounds, Sallon and her colleagues concluded that the tree may have instead been the source of a medicinal balm known as tsori that is also mentioned in historical texts.
Seeds with such an incredible lifespan are rare, according to Dr. Louise Colville, senior research leader in seed and stress biology at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. Colville wasn’t involved in the research.
“What’s surprising in this story is it was just a single seed and to be able to have one chance for that to germinate is extremely lucky,” she said.
“Working in a seed bank, seeing the potential for that extreme longevity gives us hope that banking and storing seeds that some at least will survive for very long periods of time.”
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