PREFACE

The programme covered many and varied subjects, ranging from molecular aspects of the biological processes occurring in geophytic plants to down to earth horticultural management practices. These included growth and development, control of flowering, crop protection, post-harvest physiology, propagation, biotechnology, breeding and genetics, ecology and conservation, and, introduction and domestication of new crops.

The professional tours to one of the main flower growing areas on the coastal plain in the centre of the country and to the Negev, the desert of the south, gave all of us a good idea of agricultural development in a country which absorbs recurring waves of mass immigration. In addition, “making the desert bloom” during a period not longer than 30 to 40 years was seen as a reality.

The tours gave us an opportunity to see not only what has been done, but also helped emphasize the importance that bulbous crops might have in future horticultural development in this area.

We are confident that all our guests enjoyed meeting the people of Israel and getting to know the land in its wonderful but fleeting period of spring when wild flowers bloom in abundance and great diversity. We were happy to surprise our guests with our many native geophytes, which we all know as well-established crops.

The many old friendships renewed, and the new ones made during the Symposium in Israel, make us all look forward to the coming Symposium to be held in South Africa in the year 2000.

Abraham H. Halevy
Hannah Lilien-Kipnis


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks are due to all the people who helped make the Symposium such a success: members of the local organizing committee; Dr. Rob Bogers - Chairman of our Flower Bulbs Working Group; members of the programme committee both in Israel and abroad; Ortra Ltd. who dealt with the technical side of organizing the event; the Israeli Flower Marketing Board and especially Mr. Boaz Cohen who organized the exquisite flower arrangements which we enjoyed throughout the week of the Symposium; and last but not least, all the growers who hosted our visits during the professional tours and members of the horticultural community who guided our tours so well.

The financial support of our sponsors (see p. 2) is gratefully acknowledged.


WELCOMING ADDRESS

Dear Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the 7th International Symposium on Flower Bulbs. It is now almost 4 years since the last symposium was held in Poland, and we were pleased that Israel was chosen to host this symposium. I especially appreciate that so many of you have come to participate in the conference in spite of the terrible events that happened here in the last weeks. You have demonstrated that we should not yield to terror and should continue our cultural and scientific activities despite all the difficulties.

During our symposium 63 oral contributions, 80 posters and 12 invited lectures will be presented. One hundred and twenty participants from 20 countries are here with us, together with nearly 100 Israeli scientists and growers. The program includes all aspects of the biology and culture of bulbous plants, from botany to biotechnology and molecular biology, from the practical to the most basic aspects.

We will have two tours, one a half day on Tuesday, and a second full day tour on Wednesday. On the half day tour, you will have the choice of visiting either growers or the Volcani Research Center and we will all meet later at the Agrexco aircargo terminal. For the second full day tour, we deliberated whether we should go north to the more inhabited and cultivated part of Israel which is now in full bloom, or to the south to the arid region. We decided to go south, to enable you to see not only the bulb farms, but also how this arid area, which until recently was a desert, has developed into a major horticultural region.

I should like to thank my colleagues on the organizing and the program committees, whose names are listed in the program, for their indispensable help in organizing the symposium. Many thanks also to our conference sponsors, without whose financial support we would not have been able to organize this meeting, and last but not least, to my friend Hannah Lilien-Kipnis, who bore most of the burden of coordinating this symposium.

Israel is a small country, but this small geographical area is marked by a diversity of topographic, climatic, and edaphic characters. Dr. G.E. Post, who wrote the first complete “flora” of this region at the end of the last century, says in his introduction: “this region is unequaled by any of the same size on the globe, not only for the thrilling and important events of human history of which it has been the theater, but for its unique geological structure, its great diversity of surface and climate, and its remarkable flora”.

The plant lover crossing the country from west to east, will be astonished to find so many plant formations within a two-to-three hours' drive. On the Mediterranean coast he will find the typical vegetation of the sand dunes. A few minutes later he will enter the loamy soils, with many citrus groves. Further to the east are the alluvial heavy soils of the Coastal Plain, rich in native and cultured vegetation. Leaving the plain he will start ascending the mountain chains of the central part of the country (Mount Carmel, Galilee, and Judea), some of them denuded and some covered with various degrees of shrub and wood formations. Descending the mountains eastward he will arrive rather suddenly from the woods to the arid steppes, and a little further he will find himself in complete desert. He will end up at the deep chasm of the river Jordan and the Dead Sea, the lowest valley in the world, about 400 meters below sea level, where in some places he may find tropical-African vegetation. All this within a drive of no more than 100–150 km.

Israel is situated at the meeting point of three continents and three climatic and vegetational regions: Mediterranean, Irano-Turanian and the Saharo-Sindian desert.

As a result of these conditions, this small country has a very rich indigenous flora, comprising about 3,000 species of phanerogamic plants, compared, with about 1,500 in the British Isles and 1,800 in Egypt. To illustrate the variety and richness of the vegetation we may state that within a radius of five kilometers from Jerusalem, one can find more than a thousand species belonging to seventy families.

The native vegetation of Israel and its neighboring countries is unusually rich in geophytes. They comprise about ten per cent of all the wild phanerogamous flora - more than about 250 species. Some are very common, covering wide areas; some are rare, growing only in restricted locations; and some, are even endemic, they do not grow at all outside this country.

Israel has probably been one of the most travelled lands since antiquity. As one of the two centers of Western civilization, Israel and Greece, as a junction of 3 continents and as the center of the 3 major monotheistic religions.

Crossed by conquerors, pilgrims, crusaders, travellers and explorers, no wonder that many of the native Israeli bulbous plants have been transferred to Europe hundreds of years ago and introduced into cultivation. Examples are Anemone coronaria, Ranunculus asiaticus, Cyclamen persicum, Hyacinthus orientalis, Narcissus tazetta, Lilium candidum and several tulips. Those are some of the species that were relatively easy to domesticate. Prof. Danny Zohary will elaborate on this later this morning.

In spite of this, local native populations of geophytes are far from being exhausted. This is because many regions of Israel were inaccessible to regular travellers until recently, but especially because of the advancement in our knowledge and the development of new techniques in propagation, culture and postharvest handling. Several contributions to our symposium deal with these subjects.

Although Israel and its neighboring countries were the source of many of the cultivated bulbs, the commercial production of bulbous plants in Israel has a rather short history of less then 40 years. Mr. Max Weijel will tell us about this later this morning.

The flora of the land of Israel, including bulbous plants, are mentioned many times in the Bible. The prophets' audience was composed of ordinary people, mostly farmers and shepherds who were familiar with nature, with every tree and flower, so that the prophets could always refer to plants in the vicinity metaphorically and analogically in their preaching. The Bible is full with illustrations, pointing to examples from farming life and natural vegetation, including native geophytes.

When King Solomon in Eccelestiastes (2,5) described his wealth, he said: “I made me gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kind of fruits. I made myself pools of water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees.” And in the Song of Songs (2:1–2) the shepherd lover sings to his bride: “I am the rose of Sharon (most probably the Sharon tulip - Tulipa agenensis subsp. sharonensis), and the lily of the valleys (probably Narcissus tazetta). As the lily among thorns (Lilium candidum), so is my love among the daughters.”

The last symposium was held in Poland in mid-May at the beginning of their spring. Our symposium is held 2 months earlier in mid-March which is the middle of our spring. The land, especially the northern part of our country, is covered with blooming wild flowers, many of which are geophytes. I hope that you will spend some time travelling in our country and enjoying its beauty and history.

Since antiquity many poets have described the beauty of spring, but to me the most impressive one is that expressed in the Bible, in one of the love songs of the book Song of Songs (2:10–13):

“My beloved spake and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of bird singing is come,
And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise my love, my fair one, and come away.”


WELCOME FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BULB SOCIETY

The International Bulb Society welcomes you to the Seventh International Symposium on Flower Bulbs. We hope each of you participates in a full schedule of activities by taking advantage of the numerous exciting events which have been planned for your enjoyment during the next six days.

In all the plant sciences work accomplished by all the generations of researchers which preceded ours, every answered question has produced a multitude of new questions. What good luck! Who among us would be happy in a world without questions? It is in the pursuit of answers that people kindle the fire of life and find a purpose higher than simple existence.

We trust that some of your questions will be answered during your participation in this symposium. Along with its educational aspect, we hope you will find this symposium to be a rewarding social experience and wonderfully enjoyable as well. As we have for the past 62 years, the organization now incorporated as IBS continues to encourage plant scientists, plant growers, plant explorers, conservationists and preservationists specializing in bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers to submit your articles, drawings and photo transparencies to the IBS for review toward publication in our annual journal, HERBERTIA, and our twice-yearly newsletter, The Underground.

We thank Hannah Lilien-Kipnis and Professor A.H. Halevy and all those who assisted them for the months of hard work required in putting together this symposium. We thank you, the plant scientists, plant growers, plant explorers, conservationists and preservationists who are attending this symposium and who continue to contribute so much to the world's knowledge about and enjoyment of the amazing panoply of geophytes, wild and cultivated, which stretches across our planet.

May you learn much and enjoy the symposium days ahead.

Again, we welcome you each and all.

The Board of Directors of the International Bulb Society:

Dr. Charles Gorenstein	Dr. Alan Meerow
Dylan Hannon	Michael Vassar
Charles Hardman	Guy Wrinkle
Elisabeth Lassanyi