‘And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said, “Give me, I beg you, of your son's mandrakes.”
“The days of wheat harvest.” As with Abraham and Isaac these shepherd rulers also harvest the land.
Reuben is by this time just a few years old, four or five at the most. He discovers in the fields little, strongly smelling yellow fruits and he brings them to his mother. We do not know whether he knew what they were, but his mother knew immediately. They were mandrakes, well known for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities. They have been loosely called ‘love-apples' because they look like small apples. Rachel, on seeing them, pleads for some so that she can quicken her sexual drive and effectiveness.
The mandrake is a perennial herb of the nightshade family which grew in fields and rough ground (compare Song of Solomon 7:13). It had large leaves, mauve flowers during the winter, and these were followed by the development of fragrant round yellow fruits of the type found by Reuben.