The Chemical and Mineralogical Content of the Plants of the Lake Huleh Preserve, Israel

The Lake Huleh Project has involved as complete a biological, chemical and mineralogical study as possible with the intent that a biological and chemical history could be constructed of this basin, long thought to be one of the centres of origin of agriculture. The primary object of this aspect of the project was to gain some understanding of the chemical and mineralogical composition of the plant communities occupying the nature preserve and contiguous areas and what effect these communities have had on the chemical composition of past and present lake basins. Lake Huleh, the first lake that the Jordan River used to form, was drained between 1951 and 1958. A small area of this lake was retained as a nature preserve. Twentynine pl^nt families are represented here by 57 genera containing 71 species. On analysis, these species were found to be composed of 46 elements and 11 minerals. This paper is confined to these findings. A comparison of the chemical composition of annual and perennial plants revealed that only Na, Si and Mn were significantly (beyond the 0.1% level) taken up by perennials, while annual plants contained more K, Mg, P and Cl. A further subdivision relating habitat and chemical composition showed that aquatic plants contained significantly more Na, K, Si, S, P, Cl, Mn and opal minerals than their terrestrial counterparts. Rubidium, Cs, Li, Ag, Be, Hg, Ge, Pb, Se, Bi, V, F, Br, I, Fe, Co and the oxalate minerals exhibit the same pattern, but do not have concentrations statistically significantly different from those of land plants. Land plants were composed of more Mg, Ca, sylvite (KC1), calcite, quartz and gypsum than water plants. In addition, concentrations of Cu, Sr, Ba, Zn, Cd, B, Al, Sc, Y, La, Ce, Sn, Ti, Zr, Hf, Cr, Mo, As and Ni, though not statistically significantly different from those in water plants, followed the pattern observed in land plants. One of the unexpected discoveries in this study was the variation of 29 elements within the leaves of the Cyperaceae, the Typhaceae and the Gramineae. Although only 10 of these elements exhibit variation that is statistically significant, the remaining 19 vary in a consistent fashion. The elements that concentrate in the margins of leaves of these families are Na, Ag, Be, Ca, Sr, Ba, B, Al, Ga, Si, Ge, Pb, Cl, Br, I, Mn and Fe, while those concentrated in the midsection are K, Rb, Cs and Li and those in the blade are Cu, Mg, Zn, Cr, Mo and P. It is proposed that the function of these di