Atraphaxis spinosa L.

Sinai (St.Katherine).

Shrubs 30-100 cm tall. Stem slender, with gray scabrous bark; woody branches slender, without leaves at ends, spine-pointed; herbaceous branchlets of current year soon becoming lignified, straight or slightly flexuous, slender, glabrous. Leaves gray-green or blue-green, orbicular, elliptic, broadly elliptic, or broadly ovate, rarely obovate, 3-7 × 3-5 mm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, reticulate veins raised abaxially, base rounded or cuneate, gradually narrowing into a short petiole, margin entire or slightly undulate, apex rounded or obtuse, short acuminate; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, 2-3 mm, membranous and inconspicuously veined in upper part, cleft into 2 aristate teeth. Pedicel ca. 5 mm, jointed at middle or slightly below. Flowers 2-6 at leaf axil of current year’s branchlets. Tepals pink; outer tepals reflexed in fruit, oblong-ovate or ovate, 2-3 mm. Achenes compressed, light brown, shiny, ovoid or broadly ovoid, smooth, base rounded, apex acuminate or obtuse. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.

A stiffly branched, up to 80 cm tall undershrub, branches long, spreading, spine-pointed, terminally leafless. Leaves sessile or on short c. 1 mm long petioles, ovate, elliptic, obtuse-acute, 3-6 mm long, 2-4 mm broad; ochreae short, cylindric, 1-2 mm, usually brownish at the base, ± membranous. Flowers in axillary fascicles of 2-6, pedicel 2-3 mm long, in fruit up to 7 mm long, articulate below the middle. Perianth segments 4, pinkish, outer 2 ovate to ovate-lanceolate, inner 2 ovate-orbicular. Stamens 6. Ovary with 2 styles. Fruit not winged but with 2 enlarged inner perianth segments giving wing-like appearance, inner segments 4-5 mm long, 5-6 mm broad, outer segments smaller, reflexed, oblong-ovate. Nut smooth, brown, compressed, 2-3 mm long, ovate, shining.

Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; SW Asia].

Distribution: S.E.Europe, Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, extending to Egypt through Arabia and Palestine.

Fl. Per.: May-August.

Slopes, deserts including the Gobi, roadsides, margins of cultivated land; 400-1800 m.

This Irano-Turanian element is rather more common than the previous species, Grows between 2000-3000 m on rocky slopes and dry hilly areas.

Atraphaxis spinosa var. angustifolia Chang Y. Yang & Y. L. Han.

Atraphaxis replicata auct. non Lam., Encycl. Meth. Bot. 1:329. 1783; Tragopyrum spinosum C.Presl, Bot. Bemerk. 109. 1844; A. spinosa var. linnaeana Meisn. in DC. Prodr. 14: 75. 1856; Atraphaxis spinosa var. rotundifolia Boiss., var. sinaica Boiss. and var. glaucua Boiss., l.c. 1021.