The caper bush is a successful invader of fields and is capable of producing flowering specimens even after a couple of weeks. Dealing with vegetable gardening, Pliny describes the cultivation of caper in sandy plots that have been hollowed out and surrounded by stone walls to prevent the invasion into other fields. In Berenike and Shenshef, the remains of caper bush were found in some dump areas that were located on the outside of buildings. This implies that this decorative plant with its 1 to 5 cm broad, white flowers had grown on the walls of some buildings. Each flower is open for only one day and produces, after fertilization, a 3- to 8-cm-long fruit that grows on an elongated stalk on which the stamens are implanted. The ripe fruit opens into five segments presenting the purple-red pulp to which birds are attracted, and they in turn act as dispersal agents for the seeds. According to Pliny the root, wood, and fruit of the caper bush were used. Besides medical applications that concern the roots especially, it is also mentioned that the fruits are edible, though Pliny warns against varieties with nonedible fruits from Marmarica and outside Egypt. Galen , on the other hand, only mentions the fruit and recommends it as a medicine rather than as a source of food . The edibility of the fruits is also mentioned by Schweinfurth , who remarks that the fruits were frequently sold in the market in Quseir, and by Drar ,plant grow table stating that nomads ate their contents as a remedy against fever. The archaeobotanical record of Capparis in Egypt is scanty.

Only C. decidua has been identified to the level of species on the basis of wood and seeds and is recorded from the late Paleolithic and predynastic periods. Three other records, concerning seeds and pollen, could not be identified beyond the genus level and are dated to the late Paleolithic, predynastic period and Second Intermediate periods . Other references include depictions. Those from the “botanical garden” of the temple complex of Tuthmosis III in Thebes are identified by Beaux as possibly representing Capparis. The double fruits should resemble those of the caper bush, but similar images are also attributed to Cucumis melo, as Beaux admits in fairness. Moreover, the caper fruit consists of 5 to 10 carpels forming a spindle-shaped fruit. Therefore, this doubtful identification is not tenable. The picture on a tile from Amarna, on the other hand, presented in the Flora des pharaonischen Ägypten , is more convincing. It shows a branch with leaves and a part of an elongated fruit, which indeed may be a representation of the caper bush.Safflower is a member of the daisy family , which means that the small flowers are arranged on a common receptacle and appear as one large flower. In the case of safflower, the number of flowers in such a dense terminal head, which measures 2 to 4 cm in diameter, varies from 20 to 100. Each flower produces one seed, which is tightly connected by the fruit coat. What is called a “seed” in common parlance is basically a fruit, its official name being “achene.” The plant is cultivated for its oil and its red and yellow dyes. The dye is produced from dried flowers and can be used for coloring food and textiles, whereas the oil is extracted from the fruits.

This enables a combined harvest. Soon after flowering, by which process the seeds are either self-pollinated or cross pollinated, the red flowers are carefully taken from the flower heads without disturbing the fruits. When the fruits are ripe, the second harvest may take place. Because the plants are spiny, which is particularly true for the bracts that surround the fruits, the whole plant is cut down. The top of the flower head contracts after flowering in such a way that seeds are enclosed by the bracts, preventing them from falling out. On a more commercial basis, crops are either grown for their seeds or flowers, comparable with the cultivation of fl ax, which is grown for its fibers and oily seeds. The advantage of safflower as a dye plant over others such as woad is that its valued pigment is directly available from the plant. The discovery of the pigment carthamin, which can be dissolved in alkaline solutions and is therefore permanent, was probably initiated by the custom of sowing flowers onto strips of papyrus and then draping them around the bodies of mummies . The red dye has been used for textiles and as a substitute for saffron in coloring food as is expressed in some of its vernacular names, namely bastard saffron and false saffron. True saffron is obtained from the flowers of saffron crocus and is extracted from the stigmas. Each plant produces only one stigma so that it is quite expensive and never offered for sale in huge bags such as found in many spice markets, where isolated flowers of safflower are offered for sale “as saffron” with a large profit margin. The oil content of the fruit is relatively low due to the thick fruit coat, which represents 35 to 40 percent of the complete diaspore . The oil can be used for culinary purposes and for burning.

Using the fruits as a source of oil has been practiced in Egypt and India from antiquity onward, although today Egypt is no longer a main producing country. Safflower oil was in common use in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period. The status during the Roman period is, however, ambivalent, as half of the papyri that mention this oil are statements that forbid planting safflower . Safflower has been attested in ancient Egypt from the Twelfth Dynasty onward. The plant is represented by leaves, flowers that are partly used in mummy garlands, pollen, fruits, and chemical compounds that are indicative of its use as a dye. Most records from the Roman period concern its fruits. There is papyrological evidence of the cultivation of safflower for oil during the Ptolemaic period in the Fayum . Pliny , using the word cnecon, most probably describes safflower by stating that this prickly plant is cultivated for its white, large, and bitter seeds that contain oil. According to Pliny, this plant is native to Egypt and does not grow in Italy, a statement that is in accordance with its ancient distribution as a cultivated crop. The most likely area of origin of the safflower brought to Berenike is therefore the Nile Valley or the Fayum. The presence of the fruits at Berenike remains puzzling however. It might be that the fruits were imported from the Nile Valley as a source of oil. The supply of fruits instead of ready-made oil might be explained by the production of fresh safflower oil and the pressed fruitcake. This by-product would have been suitable for cattle fodder as it still contains about 43 percent protein . A similar kind of fodder, consisting of a large pile of cake disks made from pressed olives, has been recovered from the Roman settlement Karanis . Especially in hot climates, safflower oil is sensitive to oxidation . Considering the fruit an export item is a less plausible explanation, as safflower was introduced from the Indian subcontinent into East Africa, probably by Arab and Indian traders .The carob is a tree that is adapted to dry and warm climates and is predominantly found in the eastern Mediterranean region where it has its southernmost limit in the Philistean Plain of Israel . It has also been recorded from southwestern Arabia and Somalia, but this probably concerns escapes from cultivation as is, for example, suggested for Yemen by Wood . Its present distribution in Egypt is limited to some wadi beds in the Sinai and some isolated localities in the Mediterranean strip west of the Nile Delta,hydroponic table the latter being the result of some former attempts to reintroduce the carob together with other orchard crops in this area . The carob is described fairly convincingly by Theophrastus as he mentions that it is an evergreen tree of reduced size with whitish flowers and pods that grow on the stem and branches on which both new pods and some from the previous year are present. Theophrastus is firmly of the opinion that the carob did not grow in Egypt. Strabo states that the carob grows in abundance in Ethiopia. Strabo , who has traveled in Egypt himself, uses the name Ethiopia for the land that borders the south of Egypt and admits that he is not aware of Ethiopia’s geographical contours, which means that this may include Somalia. This implies that the carob seeds that were found at Berenike and Shenshef might have been imported either from the Mediterranean region via the trade route along the Nile Valley, or from the so-called far-side ports along the Somalian coast. The same is probably true for sub-fossil remains from the pharaonic period, the oldest record dating back to the Twelfth Dynasty . Expeditions as early as ca. 2400 BC to the land of Punt on the Red Sea, which is located south of Egypt and is assumed to be Somalia, might have resulted in the availability of this tree from this area.

Carob pods are still offered for sale in spice markets, for which Cyprus is the leading supplier. The sweet tasting fruit is edible for humans but not of a high quality. As it only has a high content of sugar and calcium, it was probably consumed more in times of scarcity. A refreshing drink is made from the pods, and the sugar content is also sufficient for producing alcoholic beverages. Whole pods are sold as animal fodder. Pods are also used in medical treatment, which is true for both ancient and modern Egypt. In modern folk medicine, the pods and seeds are used for the treatment of diabetes and diarrhea . Furthermore, the fruit is roasted and ground to be used as coffee . Like the seeds of the rosary pea, the hard, glossy carob seeds were used as jewelers’ weights. One seed represents the specific weight of one carat. In this context it has been suggested that the Arabic word qirat, which means “pod, husk, weight of four seeds,” is derived from the Greek word keration , which in its Latin transcription is still used in the genus name of this plant species. Originally, the weight of one carat varied from 197 mg to 216 mg and was only fixed at 200 mg in 1913. This difference might be traced back to the variability in seed weight. Basically, the variability in seed weight can be attributed to both differences between and within plants. In the latter case, differences can be related to variations in environmental conditions and the time of production, which in turn is related to the position of the fruit on the plant and, on a microlevel, also on the position of the seed within the fruit. The variability in seed weight of carob seeds is considerable as can be deduced from its difference in size: 5–10 x 3.5–7 x 1.2–4.5 mm . Although it does not exclude the possibility that the carob seeds were used at Berenike and Shenshef as a unit of weight, the presence of a reasonable number of carob seeds in several trenches plead for the use of the carob fruits as animal fodder. Ripe fruits can be dried within a month and are then suitable for long-distance transport. The seeds are so hard that they will escape mastication and end up in the desert soil.The chickpea is one of the founder crops that was taken into cultivation in the Near East. From there it spread westward over the Mediterranean area. Additionally, it was taken into cultivation in India and Ethiopia in ancient times, where now secondary gene centers exist . In the Near East, India, and Ethiopia, chickpea is still the most important pulse crop . In Egypt, on the other hand, the chickpea is only a minor food legume and is mainly grown in the southern Nile Valley and the Nile Delta . It can be used in cooking or made into a roasted or candied snack.