This Light Horseman is picking these red anemones to press within his diary, he will and send them pressed and dried with letters or postcards to his loved ones back at home in Australia. His mount is just as pleased with the first fresh green grass she has tasted since leaving Australia. This was quite a common practise amongst the Light Horsemen, delighted as they entered the Holy Land, by the change from the monotonous dry dust of the desert.
The winter rains in the western Mediterranean region bring out a fabulous display of wild flowers covering the countryside; none more eye catching or abundant than the beautiful red anemones, Anemone Coronaria. Each individual flower blooms for a few weeks, and tracks the sun on sunny days. Anemones grow in a number of other colours, which are more selective about their habitat, but these vivid red anemones are the most numerous, and flower throughout all regions of Israel. In fact these beautiful winter flowers are so widespread and so spectacular that they now attract many tourists to Israel, and by popular vote in 2013 were declared to be Israel’s national flower.
Captain Frank Hurley photographed George Redding of the 8th Light Horse Regiment picking desert anemones near the Australian Light Horse camp at Belah in Palestine in 1918.
