In 1941, the botanist Michael Zohary published “The Weeds of Palestine and Their Control,” where he described 143 weeds that needed to be eradicated for the sake of the successful agricultural endeavors on the soil that would several years later become the State of Israel.

Following the language of Carl Linnaeus 8, Littwitz raises important questions about contemporary political cleavages. She collected an archive of the seeds listed in Zohary’s book as well as creating her own book with new drawings of the same plants. Botany takes suprising narrative turns when political connotations are considered, particularly in the survey of fauna growing on the borders of Israel. Like the control of occupied territories in the complicated political geography of the region, the seeds acquire a human quality, representing the “unwanted” native biology of the landscape. While Zohary’s original research was intended to serve agricultural development, whether he was conscious of it or not, it directly relates to the notion of creating an organized, anthropologically controlled “civilization” according to the specific understanding of the political actor “civilizing” the area. It is interesting to note, that a direct translation of the book’s original Hebrew title, would read: “The bad weeds of Israel and how to get rid of them.”