Anabasis setifera Moq.
Fre.: Anabasis. Ara.: Agram, asal, gelw.
Evergreen shrub, hermaphrodite up to 60 cm in height, glabrous. Main stem strongly woody. Bark brown, that of the branches of a lighter color. Glaucous green twigs, with thin articles (10-12 × 1.5-2 mm). Opposite leaves, well developed (0.5 to 1.5 cm long), cylindrical to claviform, more or less patent, with a deciduous terminal mucron. Leaves welded to each other and with the stem, forming a kind of inverted dome with two elongated ends (up to 1.5 cm) which are the leaves, glaucous green. No axillary hairiness, but characteristic villous-woolly galls sometimes appear at the axil of the leaves. Hermaphrodite flowers, solitary, axillary, grouped in spiciform inflorescences in groups of 3 to 7 on the upper part of the twigs. Perianth with 5 membranous and unequal parts: the 3 external suborbicular, the 2 internal oval and narrower, all obtuse. The fruit is a berry with a vertically arranged spiral-shaped seed. Fruiting perianth with 5 white or yellowish-white wings.
Flowering:
August-November.
Fruiting:
September-December.
Habitat:
Sandy or rocky soils in deserts, semi-deserts or steppes.
Distribution:
It is a species essentially from western Asia (from Egypt to Pakistan). In Egypt it lives to the E of the Nile, in the vicinity of the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula.
Conservation status:
Relatively common and widely distributed species that is not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.