MANDRAKES — a low plant of the nightshade family whose forked, vaguely human root and sweet, heady fruit made it the ancient Near East's great love-charm and fertility-drug (KJV 'mandrakes'; the name echoes dod, 'beloved,' so 'love-apples'). Reuben finds them at the wheat harvest, and Rachel trades a night with Jacob for them (30:14-16) — hoping they will open her womb. The chapter's irony is pointed: it is LEAH who conceives from that night, not Rachel; the mandrakes do nothing, and Rachel bears only later, when 'God remembered' her (30:22). The plant returns in the Song of Songs, where the lovers' mandrakes 'give forth fragrance' (7:14). → first discussed at Gen 30:14