Scarlet Everlasting

The plant grows in the Levant, including: western Syria, the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Mount Lebanon up to an altitude of 1000 m, on the Golan Heights, in most of the northern and central part of Israel and the West Bank (Upper and Lower Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee, on Mount Carmel and the Coastal Plain south of it, Mount Gilboa, the northern part of the Jordan Valley, Samaria, the Judaean Mountains and the Shefela), and the mountainous Gilead region in Jordan (the areas of Jerash and Dibeen, Ajloun, and Al-Salt). In Israel, Helichrysum sanguineum is an endangered species.

The Hebrew name Dam hamakabim was coined by the botanist Ephraim Hareuveni in 1917. The symbolic connection to Israeli war casualties first appeared in a poem by Haim Gouri written in memory of 35 Palmach comrades killed in January 1948. Since 2019, the non-profit organization Dam HaMaccabim has been distributing pins with the flower throughout Israel.