Rupali Karnik

Rupali Karnik has been a botanist at the Natural History and Botanical Museum as pat of the Environment and Protected Areas Authority in Sharjah. 

The museum explores the study of plant life through its interactive displays and learning how important trees, bushes, grasses, herbs, algae and fungi are to us, in so many ways in everyday life. The journey through time in which plants have evolved, adapted and survived to become not just part of our landscape but essential elements of our existence.

NEK: How long have you worked at the Sharjah Natural History and Botanical Museum?

Rupali Karnik: It’s been almost ten years now, a decade. I have been part of the team for a while, conserving and caring for our outdoor garden and native species. Let me show you around our outdoor gardens. This plant is called Agool (Alhagi graecorum) in Arabic. If you try to break the plant, you’ll find a watery substance oozing out from it. It’s very sweet actually, so it was used as a sugar substitute. Have you ever heard of manna? It’s a type of sugar made from the manna tree or camel thorn (Alhagi maurorum). It also used to be used as a laxative by the locals.

NEK: Is it still used today?

RK: Yes, by Bedouins mostly. They still use it as a laxative.

NEK: It seems to grow in a rocky kind of environment. Does it also grow in a sandy environment?

RK: It grows between rocks, actually. As you can see, they’re growing in the rocks. But it is not exactly gravel. They need a little soil, too. There’s one more important medicinal plant which we need to have over here. It’s called Handal. It’s latin name is  Citrullus colocynthis from a melon family. It’s a small round melon. The plant is very important because of its seed but the  fruit is poisonous. But the amazing part are the seeds which are bitter and are used as a diabetic medicine. Not only do local people but all people use it. You have to put four seeds and soak them in the water overnight. The next morning, you have to throw the seeds and drink the water. 

NEK: But it’s very dangerous to eat the fruit or to touch it or anything. 

RK: You have to clean the seeds completely, separate them from the fruit, and clean them well. But you have to be very careful to remove it correctly because the flesh of the fruit is very poisonous. There has been a case of someone who ate it and became paralysed. 

Dawn Ross: Do these plants get much bigger than they are now?

RK: When they grow bigger they look like a bush and they have beautiful red flowers, so pretty.

NEK: Do animals eat them, as well?

RK: No, because they are very thorny.The next plant I would like to introduce you to is called [cyphers tangalooma rattus], also called Rasha in Arabic. Bedouins use this plant primarily for making ropes and small baskets. It’s similar to how to date leaves are used, but with Rasha leaves, you can make small, thin ropes and smaller baskets. 

NEK: Do animals eat it, as well?

RK: Yes, goats and camels mostly. Thor or Dhafra with the latin name Tephrosia Apollinea is another very important plant that has been used by the locals. The plants’ leaves can be removed, dried, and turned into powder form, which is then inserted in camels’ ears to remove ticks. This is how locals treat camels’ ticks. 

DR: Is it also used for medicinal purposes?

RK: The locals don’t ingest it, but animals do eat it. If you talk to the locals also, they’ll tell you ways in which they have used it but there are no records of that anywhere. They also eat the Ghaff tree (prosopis cineraria) leaves by adding them to salads. I don’t usually tell people to take it as medicine because I haven’t used it as medicine myself. Like some are used like fumes, that’s fine. You could inhale some of the fumes, it’s not harmful, whereas ingesting it could be.

This is another very important one tree spefcies called a Sidr (Ziziphus spina-christi). Its leaves can be boiled in water, which then becomes like a natural moisturizer for skin or hair. You could also eat the berries that the tree bears, it’s completely safe. 

DR: Are the berries sweet?

RK: Yes, and they’re very delicious. They’re a special treat, especially back in the olden days, when people didn’t always have much. 

NEK: There is also the Sidr honey. 

RK: Yes, correct. It is also mentioned in the holy Quran in the Sidrat al-Muntaha. 

RK: This tree right next to it is actually called Rahel or Atriplex halimus, but it’s not local.We are just using it here as decoration. Next to it is another important species called Moringa peregrina. The moringa tree is very important. Local people use its young seeds in their food. Moringa powder is very rich in vitamins and antioxidants, so they also grind the leaves to make powder, and add it to food or even tea. It is considered to be a medicine as it is full of nutrients and vitamins. It’s a tall plant, and its flowers are very beautiful.

Next to it is Salvadora Persica, also called Al raq or miswak in Arabic. Its root is used as a natural toothbrush because it’s high in calcium. Before we had toothbrushes, locals used this plant’s roots to brush their teeth. The berries also have a beautiful red colour; they look like small grapes and are edible.

DR: Are the berries the size of a grape?

RK: They’re smaller, more like small cherries, red-colored and delicious, though also slightly bitter.

NEK: Are any of these plants consumed by both humans and animals? 

RK: Yes, many of these are used by both. Also, let me introduce you to this one. This is called Rhazya stricta, or Harmal in Arabic. Harmal is very important because the fumes are inhaled to relieve asthma. Locals dry the leaves and inhale the fumes to help relieve from asthma. Remram (Heliotropium kotschyi) is used in a similar way. Its leaves are dried and burned, and its fumes are then inhaled. 

DR: Birds have quite a few nests, I see.

RK: Yes. That’s because the weather is quite warm now. You won’t find as many birds’ nests when the temperatures cool down. 

DR: This is quite lovely, with all of the animals. It’s like an entire ecosystem. Is the animal reserve behind these?

RK: Actually, we have a zoo over here. Animals that are a little sick or unwell are separated from the rest. 

NEK: They have the breeding centre here as well.

RK: Up next is a Pulicara glutinosa, another very important plant. It’s called Mohtadi in Arabic. 

DR: It looks like it doesn’t have flowers.

RK: This plant has a yellow colour, but its flowers have shed. This plant’s leaf extract is used to and treat headaches. The leaves are boiled, and the water is rubbed on the forehead to help ease the pain. 

DR: So, it’s more of a shrub; it doesn’t get much bigger? RK: No, it’s about this size almost anywhere.

NEK: How long does it take to get to this size?

RK: It takes around three to four years. It has a very slow growth. And it’s a very delicate plant; it’s one of the most difficult plants to grow and maintain. You’ll find it everywhere in the wilderness, but when you bring it in and try to propagate it, try to plant it, it’s the most difficult of all the plants. It can be a real struggle to keep them alive.

NEK: And is this because of its seeds, or because it needs, very specific conditions to thrive?

RK: Good question; it’s because of the seed. In fact, this plant doesn’t produce many seeds. It might seed one year, and not at all the next. That’s the main issue. The flowers are yellow and small like pine nuts; the leaves are green. It’s very beautiful plant.

NEK: Is it found in sandy dunes?

RK: You’ll find it in gravel plains, mostly. There are about 50-60 species around here. That’s a significant figure.

NEK: I heard that they were used to build walls. It’s interesting to think of the use of plants in vernacular architecture. 

RK: This species here is Euphorbia larica, also called Esbach in Arabic. If you cut through it, a milky white substance would come out. This milky liquid is very sticky. Natives used it mainly to hunt small birds, which they would then cook and eat. They would cut the top part of the plant, and this milk would ooze out. Then, the birds would sit on these and basically be glued to them, allowing the people to grab them. That’s how they hunted small birds. 

NEK: What is this?

RK: This is al raq, again. This is a wonderful plant because it comes in so many different sizes. It can be a bush or a tall tree. And what’s great about it is that you can cut it however way you want and shape it into anything, making it perfect for landscaping. It’s a very flexible plant.

DR: It looks quite hardy.

RK: Another important plant is called Arta in Arabic (calliconum comosum) . It’s not flowering now, but when it is, it’ll have beautiful, white, woolly flowers. It’s like having cotton everywhere.

NEK: This is what they make pillows from?

RK: Yes. It’s stuffed into pillows and can also be used like a bandage. It’s very similar to cotton, and it has similar uses to cotton. It’s called the local cotton tree, actually. This is also a very important plant called Henna (). Its leaves were used to make dyes. They would boil the leaves and place a white cloth in the water, and it would be dyed green because that’s the kind of pigment that the leaves would release. It’s called a dye-making plant.

DR: And would this have been eaten by animals, as well?

RK: No, it is used  for making dyes.

NEK: I have a question about the way in which these gardens are made. How did ou work on the design on the garden?

RK: This garden is quite old, it’s been here since 1995. Nobody from our current team was around when it was designed.

DR: So, there wasn’t any strategic kind of placement?

RK: I have heard that Dr. Cullen Gandini was involved. He was an Egyptian doctor who emigrated to Australia, but nobody knows where he is now. He was also a botanist, and he went to different locations, and brought the plants. He even got the soil from those locations. He made 10 locations with two each. That is how the garden came to be. And we’re very new here, so we’ve been adding new plants, but he was the one who started it. So it was his idea to have this kind of garden. These four areas are from the sea sand, which is from the [Sita Hamriyah] coast.

This, here, is a very important plant called [Tamarix orocarina], also called Starpha in Arabic. This plant grows in coastal areas.It holds the waves, almost like sea-soil, and it acts a barrier for the waves. It’s also called the salt plant. Its leaves absorb so much salt water, so when they’re dried, their texture will be grainy from the sea salt.

NEK: And it’s used in traditional cooking?

RK: Yes, it is. 

NEK: And how long does it take to grow to this size? Is this an old plant, for instance?

RK: Because I’ve seen so many others, I can tell that this is actually the plant’s mature, adult size.

NEK: So most of the bigger fields here were planted in 1995, at the very beginning.What I understand is that you recreated the different ecosystems of the UAE

.RK: Yes,you can see here plants that grow in different ecosystems from mountain and wadis to plain and sand sheet, coastal areas and the sea. You should come back in the cooler months and spend more time with each plant, and most will be blooming – plant start blooming from November up until March and by April we would have collected all the seed for our seedbank and propagation.