Relatives
Anabasis salsa (C.A.M.) Benth. - Salt-marsh Anabasis.
Taxonomic position.
Family Chenopodiaceae Vent., genus Anabasis L.Synonyms.
Brachylepis salsa C.A.M., B. humilis Less., Microlepis salsa Eichw., Anabasis brachylepis D.Dietr., Anabasis ramosissima Minkw.Morphology and biology.
Peerennial plant. Cushion semishrub. Stems 5-25 cm tall, base with ligneous extensely branched branches producing numerous, light green or glaucous, cylindrical, glabrous annual branched shoots 1-2 mm diameter at base, consisting of 5-12 elongate or abbreviated internodes. Leaves fleshy, lower and middle ones developed, 2-5 mm long, semicylindrical, weakly broadened in upper part, obtusate, often with very short, readily falling bristle, arcuately deflexed. Upper leaves weakly developed, floral ones broad, scale-like, ovate-triquetrous, obtusate. Flowers solitary, at sides with broadly ovate herbaceous obtuse bracteoles much shorter than flowers, aggregated in spike-like inflorescences. Tepals scarious, obtuse, hardly changing at fruits, three of them orbicular-oval, two oblong-oval. Filaments alternate with ovate fleshy lobes of disc. Fruit broadly ovois, juicy, red. Propagates by seeds. Flowers in July, fruits in August.Distribution.
Lower Volga area, Caucasus (Eastern Transcaucasia), West Siberia (south), Central Asia. Takes especially large areas on Ustyurt Plateau in Kazakhstan.Ecology.
Halophyte. Wormwood-saline deserts, desert coenoses on debris subsaline soil, takyrs (claypans), swollen solonchaks, solonchaks transition to solonetzs. Tends to debris-clayey summits and slopes of Kazakh Hummocks, where occurs in abundance. Remarkable for high salt-, drought- and heat-resistance.Use and economic value.
Grazing plant of clayey deserts and semideserts. Plant of great forage value for camels, taking vast areas in Central Asia. Sheep, goats and horses eat this plant in early spring and autumn. Cattle do not eat Anabasis.References:
Grossheim AA. 1949. Manual of plants of Caucasus. Moscow. 747 p. (In Russian).Iljin MM. 1936. Genus Anabasis L. In: Shishkin BK., ed. Flora URSS. V.6. Moscow; Leningrad. P.281-302. (In Russian).
Koropachinskiy IYu., Vstovskaya TN. 2002. Woody plants of the Asian part of Russia. Novosibirsk: Publishing House of Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Science, Branch "Geo". 707 p. (In Russian).
Kurochkina LYa., Osmanova LT., Karibaeva KN. 1986. Forage plants of Kazakhstan deserts. Alma-Ata. 208 p. (In Russian).
Musaev IF. 1969. Maps of the ranges of determinant plants of Turan. In: Ranges of plants of the USSR flora. Leningrad: Leningrad University Publ. P.120-167. (In Russian).
Goloskokov VP., ed. 1969. Illustrated manual of the plants of Kazakhstan. V.1. Alma-Ata: Nauka. 644 p. (In Russian).
Bondarenko ON., Nabiev MM. 1972. Manual of plants of Middle Asia. V.3. Tashkent. 268 p. (In Russian).
Fedchenko BA., ed. Flora of Turkmenia. V.2(2). Ashkhabad. 218 p. (In Russian).