Çiriş or gulik commonly refers to Eremurus spectabilis, a perennial whose young leaves enter regional cooking. Kurdish ethnobotanical studies record local names, food uses and differences between neighbouring communities.

A tall spike of yellow star-shaped flowers and unopened green buds in grassland, with distant water, hills and a cloudy sky
Eremurus spectabilis photographed by Fyodor Lashkov in the Stavropol region, Russia, on 12 May 2016. The photograph illustrates the flowering plant within its wider range; it does not show a Kurdish gathering site or the young edible growth stage. © Fyodor Lashkov · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0.

Which plant is being discussed?

Kew accepts the botanical name Eremurus spectabilis M.Bieb. and places it in Asphodelaceae. Its native distribution includes Iran, Iraq, Türkiye, the Caucasus and parts of the eastern Mediterranean and southern Russia. That range is wider than Kurdistan. It is not an Allium, the genus containing onions and leeks, even when food descriptions compare its taste or appearance to those vegetables. Identifying the species matters because a vernacular name does not by itself establish the botanical identity of every market bundle. The flowering photograph provides context, rather than an identification guide for harvesting young leaves. [1]

Local names and actual collection records

İhsan Ekin’s 2022 study records the names çiriş otu and gulik for Eremurus spectabilis. For the study’s analysis, leaves were collected west of Mount Namaz near Şırnak on 10 May 2020 at 1,760 metres and identified with botanical expertise. This is a dated collection record, not a universal calendar for every mountain. The Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project describes the species in steppe and scrubland at approximately 1,000–2,750 metres, with tender growth used in cooked dishes. Season and elevation should therefore be attached to a locality rather than reduced to a claim that every harvest takes place beside retreating snow. [2] [3]

What Kurdish interviews document

Naji Sulaiman and colleagues conducted 43 interviews in Hawraman and Mukriyan villages of western Iran during spring 2021 and 2022. Their 2024 study records Eremurus spectabilis under the names Khuzha and Khuzhe, with voucher HSK39 deposited in Sanandaj. Seventeen Hawramani participants mentioned it, while the Mukriyani interview group did not. The recorded uses include leaves in soups and as seasoning. These results describe the researchers’ sample; they do not prove that nobody in the wider Mukriyan region uses the plant. The comparison also records its presence in earlier Iraqi Hawraman research. Kurdish knowledge is visible here through named communities, interviews and preserved specimens, including variation within Kurdish society. [4]

A published cooking method

A recipe by Dr Saadet Tuğrul Ay for the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project uses identified foxtail lily with onion, tomato, olive oil and either rice or bulgur. The onion and tomato are softened first, the cut greens are added, and the grain finishes cooking with a little water; lemon is an optional finish. This is one documented regional preparation. It does not establish a single obligatory Kurdish soup with lentils, tomato paste and yogurt in every household. The grain-to-greens balance can vary, and the named recipe gives readers a traceable source for the method rather than an unattributed claim of authenticity. [5]

Food leaves and experimental root extracts

Raffaella Gaggeri and colleagues investigated root material sold in Sulaymaniyah and compared it with E. spectabilis and E. persicus. Their chemical profiling indicated that the market material contained mainly the former with a smaller contribution from the latter. Their biological work concerned ethanol extracts and cultured human immune cells. It was preliminary laboratory research, not a clinical trial of eating cooked leaves. Claims about traditional remedies, extract activity and food use belong to different kinds of evidence. This distinction keeps a cultural food account from turning experimental findings into an unsupported promise of treatment. [6]

Sources and further reading

  1. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Plants of the World Online: Eremurus spectabilis M.Bieb., accepted name, classification and native distribution.
  2. İhsan Ekin, “Mineral and heavy metal concentration of nutritionally and therapeutically valued wild plants,” Istanbul Journal of Pharmacy 52(2) (2022), pp. 179–186; collection methods and Table 1.
  3. Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition, Eremurus spectabilis: habitat, altitude and culinary parts.
  4. Naji Sulaiman et al., “Cultural vs. State Borders: Plant Foraging by Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran,” Plants 13(7), 1048 (2024), methods and Table 1.
  5. Dr Saadet Tuğrul Ay, BFN Turkey, “Foxtail Lily with Olive Oil”: named recipe and preparation.
  6. Raffaella Gaggeri et al., “Towards elucidating Eremurus root remedy,” Journal of Medicinal Plants Research (2015), DOI 10.5897/JMPR2015.5873: chemical identification and preliminary in-vitro experiments.
  7. Fyodor Lashkov, Eremurus spectabilis in the Stavropol region (12 May 2016), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.