Tribulus terrestris, Puncturevine, Caltrop,
Cathead, Yellow vine, Goathead,
Hebrew: קוטב מצוי, Arabic: جريس
Scientific name:  Tribulus terrestris L.
Common name:  Puncturevine, Caltrop, Cathead, Yellow vine, Goathead
Hebrew name:  קוטב מצוי
Arabic name:  جريس
Plant Family:  Zygophyllaceae, Caltrop Family, זוגניים

Tribulus terrestris, Puncturevine, Caltrop, Cathead, Yellow vine,جريس, Goathead, קוטב מצוי

Life form:  Therophyte, annual
Spinescence:  Fruits
Stems:  Highly branched stems generally less than 1 m long (up to 2.4 m), branching radially from the crown
Leaves:  Alternate, opposite, compound, pinnate, dentate or serrate
Flowers:  Yellow
Fruits  Four or five single-seeded nutlets; hard and bearing two to three sharp spines, 10 mm long and 4–6 mm broad point-to-point. These nutlets resemble goats' or bulls' heads
Flowering Period:  April, May, June, July, August, September
Habitat:   Cultivated areas (weeds)
Distribution:  Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon
Chorotype:  Euro-Siberian - Med - Irano-Turanian
Summer shedding:  Ephemeral

Israel native plants, Palestine, Nature


Derivation of the botanical name:
Tribulus, an instrument resting on three of its iron prongs, while a fourth projected upward, thrown on the ground to impede an enemy's cavalry, a caltrop. Transfer from its resemblance in form; a kind of thorn or thistle, land-caltrops: Tribulus terrestris, Linn.
terrestris, of or belonging to the earth or land; growing on the ground.
caltrop is derived from the Latin calcitrapa (foot-trap).
The Hebrew name: קוטב, kotev, from Arabic: kotaba.
  • The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
The Greek word τρίβολος, Tribulus, meaning "a prickly plant", refer to thistles.
Dardar, דרדר, translated τρίβολος, trı́bolos in the Septuagint: Genesis 3:18; Hosea 10:8, English Versions of the Bible "thistle".
τρίβολος also occurs in the New Testament: Matthew 7:16, "thistle"; Hebrews 6:8, the King James Version "briers" the Revised Version (British and American) "thistles".
The Hebrew word dardar, דרדר is a species of the star thistle, perhaps the Centaurea iberica. Centaurea iberica is one of the commonest weeds of the eastern Mediterranean. see: Thorns and Thistles in the Bible