''Cistanche deserticola'' is a

holoparasitic A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called the ...

member of the plant family

Orobanchaceae Orobanchaceae, the broomrapes, is a family of mostly parasitic plants of the order Lamiales, with about 90 genera and more than 2000 species. Many of these genera (e.g., ''Pedicularis'', ''Rhinanthus'', ''Striga'') were formerly included in the ...

, commonly known as desert-broomrape. The plant lacks

chlorophyll Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is any of several related green pigments found in cyanobacteria and in the chloroplasts of algae and plants. Its name is derived from the Greek words , ("pale green") and , ("leaf"). Chlorophyll allow plants to a ...

and obtains its nutrients and water in a parasitic fashion from the black saxaul (''Haloxylon ammodendron'') and white saxaul (''Haloxylon persicum'').

Description

''Cistanche deserticola'' is a perennial hardy, shrub-like herb tall. It is shaped somewhat like a cross between a pine cone and a pineapple, with thick, fleshy stems and large, yellow flowers that grow smaller at the plant's apex.

Distribution

''Cistanche deserticola'' is widely distributed in China's deserts including the provinces of

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

, and

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

, and the Autonomous Regions of

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

Ningxia Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in ...

, and

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

Traditional uses

Along with other members of the genus ''Cistanche'', ''Cistanche deserticola'' is a noted source of the

Chinese herbal medicine Chinese herbology () is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A ''Nature'' editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that t ...

cistanche ''Cistanche'' is a worldwide genus of holoparasitic desert plants in the family Orobanchaceae. They lack chlorophyll and obtain nutrients and water from the host plants whose roots they parasitize. They are often known as desert hyacinths. Taxo ...

(), commonly called Rou Cong Rong. Pharmaceutical materials, known in Chinese as ''suosuo dayuan'' (), are produced by slicing the stems of the plant. Inner Mongolia is the top native-producing area of the species; annual production is about 70 tons. The stems are gathered in the spring, when the sprouts have not come out of the ground or have just come up, dried in the sun and cut into slices for medicinal use. ''Cistanche deserticola'' has been placed on

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

Appendix 2, a list of endangered species not banned from trade but requiring monitoring. With increased consumption of cistanche, the population of the species has decreased and its area of distribution has shrunk. Aside from over-collection or indiscriminate collection, an important factor in the diminished supply of cistanche is a loss of the

saxaul ''Haloxylon'' is a genus of shrubs or small trees, belonging to the plant family Amaranthaceae. ''Haloxylon'' and its species are known by the common name saxaul. According to Dmitry Ushakov, the name borrowed from the Kazakh "seksevil". In moder ...

host, which is widely used for firewood.

References

External links

Picture of ''Cistanche deserticola''
from the Documentation Center for Species Protection

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5122273 Orobanchaceae Flora of Gansu Flora of Inner Mongolia Flora of Ningxia Flora of Qinghai Flora of Shaanxi Flora of Xinjiang Plants used in traditional Chinese medicine Plants described in 1960