SALSOLA KALI

Family and Genus:- See- AMARANTHACEAE

Common Names:- Prickly saltwort

Homotypic Synonyms:- Kali soda Moench, Salsola acicularis, Salsola

decumbens, Salsola kali var. hirta, Salsola kali var. vulgaris.

Meaning:- Salsola (L) Salt, A name used by the Italian physician and botanist

Andrea Cesalpino.

Kali (L) Reference to the ashes of saltworts being alkaline, cognate

with Kalium (Potassium).

General description:- Erect or diffuse, annual usually with with stiff bristly hairs

(hispid), green.

Stems:-

1) Up to 60 cm, densely covered with brittle bristly hairs covered in white and purple

or white and green ridges.

Leaves:-

1) Alternate, simple, narrow, cylindrical, untoothed, mucronate or acuminate.

Flowers:-

1) Green, tinted with rose or white, solitary or connate into 2-3 spikes exceeded

by the foliaceous bracts.

1) Bracts, foliaceous, shorter than the leaves.

2) Perianth, with 5 tepals fused with each other in their lower part, rigid, ucronulate,

mid-vein distinct; not spongy and inflated in fruit.

Fruit:-

1) Achenes, membranous. completely surrounded by the perianth.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, not clavate.

2) Leaves, spine-tipped, mucronate or acuminate.

3) Perianth-segments, rigid, mucronulate, mid-vein distinct; not spongy and inflated

. in fruit

4) Plant, densely covered with brittle bristles.

5) Bracts ± patent.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Sandy and rocky shores, coastal saltmarshes, sometimes in ?eld

margins and ruderal habitats up to 850 m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, mostly in coastal habitats. - Widespread in

Europe, N Africa and SW to C Asia, commonly naturalized elsewhere. Widespread

around the coastal areas of Crete.

Flowering time:- June-Sept.

Photos by:- Steve Lentons.