Haloxylon persicum

• Interesting Facts
• Description
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Amaranthaceae

Herbs, clambering subshrubs , shrubs , or lianas. Leaves alternate or opposite, entire, exstipulate . Flowers small, bisexual or unisexual , or sterile and reduced, subtended by 1 membranous bract and 2 bracteoles, solitary or aggregated in cymes. Inflorescences elongated or condensed spikes (heads ), racemes , or thyrsoid structures of varying complexity. Bracteoles membranous or scarious . Tepals 3-5, membranous, scarious or subleathery, 1-, 3-, 5-, or 7(-23) -veined. Stamens as many as tepals and opposite these, rarely fewer than tepals; filaments free , united into a cup at base or ± entirely into a tube , filament lobes present or absent, pseudostaminodes present or absent; anthers (1- or) 2-loculed, dorsifixed , introrsely dehiscent . Ovary superior, 1-loculed; ovules 1 to many; style persistent , short and indistinct or long and slender; stigma capitate, penicillate , 2-lobed or forming 2 filiform branches. Fruit a dry utricle or a fleshy capsule, indehiscent, irregularly bursting, or circumscissile. Seeds lenticular , reniform , subglobose, or shortly cylindric , smooth or verruculose .

About 70 genera and 900 species: worldwide; 15 genera (one introduced ) and 44 species (three endemic, 14 introduced) in China.

Morphology of the androecium, perianth (tepals), and the inflorescence has traditionally been used to circumscribe genera and tribes . Pseudostaminodia are interstaminal appendages with variously shaped apices. Filament appendages are the lateral appendages of filaments (one on each side) . The basic structure of the inflorescence is the cyme (branchlets arising from the bracteole axils, the bracteoles serving as bracts for upper flowers), which can be reduced to one flower with two bracteoles and a bract. Units of dispersal vary considerably (capsules opening with lower part persistent, flower and bracteoles falling together, or cymose partial inflorescences breaking off above bract) and can be characteristic for genera. Several genera possess long trichomes serving dispersal at the base of the tepals.[1]

Genus Haloxylon

Shrubs or trees , glabrous , or cottony in leaf axils . Stem erect , much branched; older branches terete , annual ones green or blue-green, pointed . Leaves opposite, reduced to scales or nearly absent, bases united , apex obtuse or with a short awn . Flowers solitary in leaf axils, bisexual , with 2 bractlets . Perianth segments 5, free , papery or dry membranous, abaxially with a distal, transverse wing in fruit, adaxially concave , base usually arachnoid ; wing horizontal, membranous, longitudinally veined. Disk cupular. Stamens 5, inserted on disk; anthers elliptic , without an appendage . Ovary base sunken into disk; style very short; stigmas 2-5. Utricle hemispheric , apically slightly concave; pericarp fleshy , adnate to seed. Seed horizontal; embryo green, spiral ; perisperm absent.

About 11 species: from the Mediterranean region to C Asia; two species in China.[2]

Taxonomy

Notes

An accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database.

Similar Species

Members of the genus Haloxylon

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 0 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

More Info

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Further Reading

• Biosphere Reserves, Compilation 4, October 1986: programme on man and the biosphere (MAB) IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre url p. 404.
• Flora of the U.S.S.R. [Springfield, Va.: Israel Program for Scientific Translations; 1968- url p. 159, p. 239, p. 240.
• Lepidopterous fauna of the USSR and adjacent countries: a collection of papers dedicated to professor Alexsandr Sergeevich Danilevskii / collected by O.L. Kryzhanovskii; Donald R. Davis, scientific editor; [translated from the Russian by P.M. Rao]. Washington, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 1988. url p. 316.
• Mammals of the Soviet Union / V.G. Heptner, A.A. Nasimovich, and A.G. Bannikov; scientific editor, Robert S. Hoffmann. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and National Science Foundation, 1988- url p. 652, p. 653, p. 655.
• Nature Reserves of the Himalaya and the Mountains of Central Asia IUCN url p. 465, p. 98.
• The future of arid lands: papers and recommendations from the International Arid Lands Meetings / edited by Gilbert F. White. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1956. url p. 398, p. 400, p. 448.
• Kuan Ke-chien. 1979. Amaranthaceae. In: Kung Hsien-wu & Tsien Cho-po, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 25(2): 194241.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 22, 2012.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 28, 2008:

• Israel Nature and Parks Authority

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 5964070
• Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:165849-1
• International Plant Names Index (IPNI) ID: 165849-1
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 1880921

Footnotes

1. Bojian Bao, Thomas Borsch & Steven E. Clemants "Amaranthaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 5 Page 415. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
2. "Haloxylon". in Flora of China Vol. 5 Page 395. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.