Shemurat Allon, Protected forest in Haifa District, Israel.
Shemurat Allon is a small nature reserve of about 8 dunams at the Alon junction, where Route 65 meets Route 650, roughly a kilometre east of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. It holds a grove of some 60 mature Tabor oaks 7–8 metres tall, growing on red sandy hamra soil, with young trees planted to restore the stand.
The forest reserve was established in 1967 as part of a national initiative to preserve natural landscapes. This protected status represented an early effort to systematically safeguard natural areas across the region.
The reserve takes its alternative name, Hurvat Tzarkas, from the Circassian village cemetery that once stood here; the grove survived Ottoman logging in World War I because of those graves. Today squills planted around the graves flower mainly in the trees' shade, and the site is named for the Tabor oaks (alon) that dominate it.
The reserve lies at the Alon junction where Route 65 meets Route 650, about a kilometre east of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. The grove covers only 7.848 dunams, so a visit takes little time. Come in autumn for the squill bloom, in January–February for red anemones, and in late February–March for tulips and Asia buttercups.
The grove's roughly 60 mature Tabor oaks are nearly the same age and genetically closer to oaks of the Lower Galilee than to the nearer Carmel population, which suggests the trees were planted deliberately and their acorns or saplings brought from the north.
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