Leptadenia pyrotechnica

A recent review of the literature devoted to the species presented it as possessing antifungal, antibacterial, anticancer, antioxidant, wound healing, anthelmintic, antiatherosclerotic, hypolipidemic, antdiabetic and hepatoprotective properties coupled with other multifarious uses. Almost all parts of the plant are used in the traditional medicinal systems of the various countries in which it grows.[5]

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz tentatively identifies this species as the lost ma'aleh ashan, which formed a key ingredient of the incense (ketoret) offered daily by the priests on the altar in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The shrub is known for its flammability - whence the specific name pyrotechnica, bestowed on it because it was used both as a tinder and as an inextinguishable slow match.[6] Its addition to the incense employed in priestly ritual might thus have ensured that the aromatic smoke so generated would rise in a perfectly vertical fashion (i.e. directly up to God) - as described in accounts of the burning of the incense used in the temple.[7]

The recipe for the sacred incense containing the flammable plant ma'aleh ashan (and the identity of the plant itself) were closely-guarded secrets, known only to the Avtinas family who perished without revealing them, refusing to disclose them until their ultimate loss following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.[8]

According to the Temple Institute, "In our own time, some have speculated that this may be the plant Leptadenia pyrotechnica, which contains nitric acid [sic]."[9]

A recent study undertaken in Saudi Arabia did not, however, reveal unusually high levels of nitrates in the species (of the kind which would account for high flammability) when compared with those of various other desert plants, although this does not necessarily rule out the possibility of higher nitrate levels in Israeli populations of the plant.[10]

Similar firework-like behaviour of fistular plant stems was noted also in ancient China in regard to the hollow stems of bamboo and the bamboo-like shrub Leycesteria formosa - indeed, to this day, the Chinese consider the popping of burning bamboo stems in bonfires to be apotropaic and to have been the inspiration for the invention of pyrotechnics - whereby mixtures containing oxidising salts (such as nitrates) were packed in tubes of similar form.[11]

Shepherds in Niger snack on the raw flowers of the plant, while tending their flocks in the arid areas in which it grows.[6]