A psammophyte is a plant that grows in sandy and often unstable soils. Psammophytes are commonly found growing on

beaches A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells ...

deserts A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one ...

, and

sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

. Because they thrive in these challenging or inhospitable

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s, psammophytes are considered

extremophile An extremophile (from Latin ' meaning "extreme" and Greek ' () meaning "love") is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e. environments that make survival challenging such as due to extreme temper ...

s, and are further classified as a type of

psammophile A psammophile is a plant or animal that prefers or thrives in sandy areas. Plant psammophiles are also known as psammophytes. They thrive in places such as the Arabian Peninsula and the Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , ...

Etymology

The word "psammophyte" consists of two Greek roots, ''psamm-'', meaning "sand", and ''-phyte'', meaning "plant". The term "psammophyte" first entered English in the early twentieth century via German botanical terminology.

Description

Psammophytes are found in many different plant families, so may not share specific morphological or

phytochemical Phytochemicals are chemical compounds produced by plants, generally to help them resist fungi, bacteria and plant virus infections, and also consumption by insects and other animals. The name comes . Some phytochemicals have been used as poisons ...

traits. They also come in a variety of plant life-forms, including annual ephemerals,

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Der ...

s, hemicryptophytes, and many others. What the many diverse psammophytes have in common is a resilience to harsh or rapidly fluctuating environmental factors, such as shifting soils, strong winds, intense sunlight exposure, or saltwater exposure, depending on the habitat. Psammophytes often have specialized traits, such as unusually tenacious or resilient roots that enable them to anchor and thrive despite various environmental stressors. Those growing in arid regions have evolved highly efficient physiological mechanisms that enable them to survive despite limited water availability.

Distribution and habitat

Psammophytes grow in regions all over the world and can be found on sandy, unstable soils of

, and

. In China's autonomous

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 ...

region, psammophytic woodlands are found in steppe habitats.

Ecology

Psammophytes often play an important ecological role by contributing some degree of soil stabilization in their sandy habitats. They can also play an important role in soil nutrient dynamics. Depending on the factors at play at a given site, psammophyte communities exhibit varying degrees of

species diversity Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community (a dataset). The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the same mean proportional species abundan ...

. For example, in the dunes of the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

, psammophyte communities exhibit limited diversity and are predominantly made up of plants from the

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

and

mustard Mustard may refer to: Food and plants * Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment * Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment ** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...

families. Like many other types of plants, psammophytes can have symbiotic relationships with

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s called

endophyte An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life cycle without causing apparent disease. Endophytes are ubiquitous and have been found in all species of plants studied to date; h ...

s that live inside of their tissues, which can impart enhanced growth or other benefits.

Conservation

A major threat to psammophytes in many regions is dune destabilization, which is exacerbated by human development projects and factors associated with

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, such as drought and temperature increases. Encroachment of non-psammophytic plants and invasive species poses another threat to psammophyte species in some areas.

Ecological restoration Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interrupt ...

efforts in psammophyte habitats often aim to utilize the natural soil stabilizing and nutrient enhancement abilities of psammophytes as part of restoration strategies. Another important strategy is restoring and protecting the requisite

soil microbiome Soil microbiology is the study of microorganisms in soil, their functions, and how they affect soil properties. It is believed that between two and four billion years ago, the first ancient bacteria and microorganisms came about on Earth's ocea ...

some psammophytes require to thrive. China's Minqin Garden of Desert Plants is one organization that is actively working on efforts to conserve both wild and horticultural psammophyte species.

Examples

Some examples of psammophyte species include: * ''

Agriophyllum squarrosum ''Agriophyllum'' is a genus of flowering plants of the family Amaranthaceae, native to arid regions of Asia with a few occurrences in Eastern Europe. Reaching at most 1m, they are valuable as fodder and for wind‑blown soil capture. In Kazakhst ...

'' (sand rice) * ''

Haloxylon ammodendron ''Haloxylon ammodendron'', the saxaul, black saxaul, sometimes sacsaoul or saksaul ( rus, саксау́л, r=saksaúl, which is from kk, сексеуіл, r=seksewil), is a plant belonging to the family Amaranthaceae. Description The saxaul ra ...

'' (saxaul) * ''

Linaria arenaria ''Linaria arenaria'', sometimes called sand toadflax or French toadflax, is a yellow-flowered member of the genus ''Linaria''. It is found in sand-dunes and sandy grassland in western France, north-west Spain and Portugal and is thus a psammophy ...

'' (sand toadflax) * '' Omphalodes kuzinskyanae'' (Kuzinsky navelwort) * '' Stipagrostis pungens'' (madjiugu)

References

External links

Minqin Garden of Desert Plants
{{Botany Plant morphology Biology terminology Plant life-forms Plants by habit Desert flora