Authoritative Garden Has Roots in the Bible

OJAI — The Biblical Garden in Ojai contains specimens of more than 50 trees and plants mentioned in the Bible. But the book’s most famous--or infamous--fruit tree, the apple tree, is nowhere on the premises.

“That’s because [some] botanists now believe that Eve gave Adam an apricot from an apricot tree,” said Ginger Wilson, the garden’s curator.

Apples didn’t grow in the Holy Land back then, she said, and today’s scholars think the Bible’s various translations, plus the mention of the apple in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” caused the apricot/apple confusion.

Another source of confusion, Wilson said, is the rose.

“What is called a rose in the Bible is what we now know as oleander.”

Otherwise, most of the plants in the leafy garden on the grounds of Ojai Presbyterian Church are recognizable today by the names they were called thousands of years ago.

A small sign accompanies each plant. The first line lists the plant as it is named in the Bible, then its botanic name, then a biblical quote and source. They include:

MYRRH (Labdanum). “Carry down to the man a present, a little balm . . . spices and myrrh.” Genesis 43:11.

ROSE (Nerium oleander). “Listen to me and blossom like the rose that grows on the banks.” Ecclesiasticus 39:13.

BULRUSH (Papyrus). “And when she could hide him no longer she took for him a basket made of bulrushes.” Exodus 2:3.

APRICOT (Prunus armeniaca). “Like an apricot among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved.” Song of Solomon2:3.

LILY OF THE FIELD (Anemone coronaria). “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.” Matthew 6:28.

CEDAR OF LEBANON (Cedrus libani). “The righteous grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” Psalms 92:12.

MANNA TREE (Tamarix mannifera). “We send you money to buy manna (incense).” Baruch 1:10.

Wilson is the Biblical Garden’s second curator. Its first, Mary Lapham Hunt, planted the garden 25 years ago after exhibiting biblical plant specimens at Ojai Valley Garden Club shows since the 1950s.

Before Hunt died a few years ago, she asked Wilson to carry on her work. Wilson couldn’t refuse, she said, and she tries to keep the garden up to her friend’s standards.

“Mary didn’t plant anything that scholars consider legendary or that she felt information was too scant on,” Wilson said. “She wouldn’t have thought of putting a tree in that wasn’t absolutely authentic.”

Hunt’s final authority was always Harold Moldenke, curator of the New York Botanic Garden and author of the book “Plants of the Bible.”

An example is the garden’s date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, a feather palm with grooved leaves to hold water. Hunt spent years tracking down a feather palm before she found one at the Palm Springs Botanic Garden. Date palms that grow near Indio, she knew, are not true date palms but hybrids.

Date palms grew in Jordan and Galilee in biblical times, Wilson said. They grew wild at oases, Hunt said in a brochure, with “their feet in the water and their heads in the fiery heat of the desert sun.”

“Mary was interested in the similarity between the climate and topography of the Bible lands and Southern California, especially Ojai,” Wilson said.

As in ancient times, Wilson said, the Ojai Biblical Garden was not planted for beauty but for practicality. Plants such as the olive tree were grown for their food then or, in the case of the date palm, for food as well as to make shoes, baskets, ropes and brooms.

Hunt loved to cite little-known information, Wilson said. “She noted that the plant mentioned most in the Bible was the grape--cited 219 times.

“And she used to explain that the first crown in the world was Solomon’s, and it was patterned after the crown that is on a pomegranate. And the first plant mentioned in the Bible is the fig.”

Wilson has taken over Hunt’s search for a specimen turpentine tree, which was common in Arabia thousands of years ago, and was even then the source of commercial turpentine.

“She always thought we could find one somewhere,” Wilson said.

The Biblical Garden may be visited at any time by self-guided tour, but Wilson said the $2 tour offered by her or docent Mary Webb is more informative. The church and gardens are at 304 N. Foothill Road. To arrange a tour, call 646-1655 or 646-1437.