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Saltbrush Scrub
Saltbush scrub is a Mojave Desert plant community and vegetation type, found above and beyond the alkali sink Shadscale scrub type. Halophyte plants must deal with salt in the soil, but in less high concentrations than are found in the alkali sink shadscale scrub zone.Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, p 16 Alkali sink vegetation grades into saltbrush scrub. Flora Common species include members of the goosefoot family (Chenopodiaceae), such as: * four-wing saltbrush ('' Atriplex canescens'') *shadscale (''Atriplex confertifolia ''Atriplex confertifolia'', the shadscale or spiny saltbush, is a species of evergreen shrub in the family Amaranthaceae, which is native to the western United States and northern Mexico. Description The height of ''Atriplex confertifolia'' ...'') *cattle spinach, or all-scale ('' Atriplex polycarpa''). The shadscale scrub community vegetation also has these family Chenopodiaceae species, but is found at higher elevations. See also * Shadscale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah. The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin deserts, forms a larger North American Desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between . It supports a diversity of flora and fauna. The desert supports a number of human activities, including recreation, ranching, and military training. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Community
A plant community is a collection or association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The components of each plant community are influenced by soil type, topography, climate and human disturbance. In many cases there are several soil types present within a given plant community. This is because the soil type within an area is influenced by two factors, the rate at which water infiltrates or exits (via evapotranspiration) the soil, as well as the rate at which organic matter (any carbon-based compound within the environment, such as decaying plant matter) enters or decays from the soil. Plant communities are studied substantially by ecologists, due to providing information on the effects of dispersal, tolerance to environmental conditions, and response to disturbance of a variety of plant species, information valuable to the comprehension of various plant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alkali Sink
An alkali sink is a salty basin land form. The term may also refer to a North American desert vegetation type (biome) characteristic of that landform.Pam MacKay, Mojave Desert Wildflowers, 2nd Ed., p. 15-16 Rainwater drains to the basin and collects in areas where it cannot penetrate the soil due to a layer of clay or caliche, producing a pond or lake. When the water evaporates, it leaves behind increasing amounts of salts in the soil. Plants that tolerate the extreme salt concentrations are known as halophytes. It is generally below the saltbrush scrub vegetation type, which is typified by less salt tolerant species than alkali sink types. References {{reflist Fluvial landforms Salt flats Salt flats of the United States Deserts and xeric shrublands Deserts and xeric shrublands in the United States North American desert flora, . Flora of the California desert regions, . Plant communities of California ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shadscale Scrub
Shadscale scrub is a plant community and vegetation type that occurs in upper elevations of the Mojave Desert and lower elevations of the Great Basin ecoregion or biome, characterized by salt tolerant plants— halophytes. It is located at higher elevations than the saltbush scrub plant community, but shares some of its plant species.Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, p 16 Flora The shadscale scrub vegetation type commonly includes: *hop-sage (''Grayia spinosa'') *winter fat ('' Krascheninnikovia lanata''). Shared members with higher elevation saltbush scrub include: *goosefoot family ( Chenopodiaceae) members *four-wing saltbrush (''Atriplex canescens'' *shadscale ('' Atriplex confertifolia'') *cattle spinach, or all-scale (''Atriplex polycarpa ''Atriplex polycarpa'', the allscale, (or all-scale) cattle spinach, allscale saltbush, or cattle saltbush, is a plant in the family Amaranthaceae. It is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northern Mexico. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halophyte
A halophyte is a salt-tolerant plant that grows in soil or waters of high salinity, coming into contact with saline water through its roots or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs and seashores. The word derives from Ancient Greek ἅλας (halas) 'salt' and φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. Halophytes have different anatomy, physiology and biochemistry than glycophytes.Physiology of halophytes, T. J. FLOWERS, Plant and Soil 89, 41-56 (1985) An example of a halophyte is the salt marsh grass ''Spartina alterniflora'' (smooth cordgrass). Relatively few plant species are halophytes—perhaps only 2% of all plant species. Information about many of the earth's halophytes can be found in thehalophdatabase. The large majority of plant species are glycophytes, which are not salt-tolerant and are damaged fairly easily by high salinity. Classification Halophytes can be classified in many ways. According to Stocker (1933), it is mainly of 3 kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chenopodiaceae
Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it the most species-rich lineage within its parent order, Caryophyllales. Description Vegetative characters Most species in the Amaranthaceae are annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs; others are shrubs; very few species are vines or trees. Some species are succulent. Many species have stems with thickened nodes. The wood of the perennial stem has a typical "anomalous" secondary growth; only in subfamily Polycnemoideae is secondary growth normal. The leaves are simple and mostly alternate, sometimes opposite. They never possess stipules. They are flat or terete, and their shape is extremely variable, with entire or toothed margins. In some species, the leaves are reduced to minute scales. In most cases, neither basal nor terminal aggrega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atriplex Canescens
''Atriplex canescens'' (or chamiso, chamiza, four-wing saltbush) is a species of evergreen shrub in the family Amaranthaceae native to the western and midwestern United States. Description ''Atriplex canescens'' has a highly variable form, and readily hybridizes with several other species in the genus ''Atriplex''. The degree of polyploidy also results in variations in form. Its height can vary from 1 foot to 10 feet, but 2 to 4 feet is most common. The leaves are thin and 0.5 to 2 inches long. It is most readily identified by the fruits, which have four wings at roughly 90 degree angles and are densely packed on long stems. This species blooms from April to October. Habitat Fourwing saltbush is most common in early succession areas such as disturbed sites and active sand dunes. It is also found in more mature successions dominated by sagebrush—''Artemisia tridentata'' and shadscale. Uses Among the Zuni people, an infusion of dried root and blossoms or a poultice of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atriplex Confertifolia
''Atriplex confertifolia'', the shadscale or spiny saltbush, is a species of evergreen shrub in the family Amaranthaceae, which is native to the western United States and northern Mexico. Description The height of ''Atriplex confertifolia'' varies from . Shadscale fruits and leaves provide important winter browse for domestic livestock and native herbivores. Compared to fourwing saltbush ('' Atriplex canescens''), shadscale has shorter and wider leaves and the fruit does not have four wings (although it may have two wings in a "V" shape). This species blooms from March to June. Maximum osmotic pressure has been reported in Atriplex conf. where it is about 202.5 atm. Distribution and habitat Shadscale is a common, often dominant, shrub in the lowest and driest areas of the Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of Cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atriplex Polycarpa
''Atriplex polycarpa'', the allscale, (or all-scale) cattle spinach, allscale saltbush, or cattle saltbush, is a plant in the family Amaranthaceae. It is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northern Mexico. This species blooms in July and August. External links''Atriplex polycarpa'' - Calflora GalleryUSDA Plants Profile: ''Atriplex polycarpa'' {{Taxonbar, from=Q1150701 polycarpa
''Polycarpa'' is a genus of ascidian tunicates in the family Styelidae.
Species within the genus ''Polycarpa'' include:Sanamyan, K. (2015)''Polycarpa'' Heller, 1877 .In: Shenkar, N.; Gittenberger, A.; Lambert, G ...
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Flora Of The California Desert Regions
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Of The Mojave Desert
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word ''physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Communities Of California
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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