Ephedra altissima Desf.
Eng.: Ephedra. Spa.: Efedra altisima. Fre.: Ephèdre élevé, uvette. Ara.: Ebassi, belbal, dil al aud, ansfel, bu ferag, lartta. Tam.: Lallir, anchfel.
Evergreen shrub, dioecious, lianoid, sarmentose, which can climb up to 10-15 m in height. Main branches with a grey-reddish bark, secondary branches and branchlets green, opposite, articulated, at first upright, later often sloping, pendant. Leaves opposite or born in a kind of whorl of 3-4, welded at the base, ± linear, very small in old branches and branchlets, well developed in young ones, where they can reach 1.5 cm. Male cones clustered in 2 to 6 in a very ramose panicle, opposite, with 2-3 yellow anthers each. Galbuli ovoid or subglobose (7-9 mm), which appear in a sparse panicle or solitary on a branchlet as a peduncle, with bright red or white fleshy bracts surrounding them at maturity.
Flowering:
Winter to spring.
Fruiting:
Spring to summer.
Habitat:
Forests, thickets and rocky outcrops on dry and semiarid soils, up to 1,800 m.
Distribution:
Endemic to North Africa from western Libya to the Atlantic and from the central Sahara to the Mediterranean. It has also been cited in the Tibesti (var. tibestica Maire).
Observations:
Observations. A similar species is E. aphylla Forssk. (E. alte sensu Maire) (Ara.: Algam, morreikh) though well differentiated by its branchlets, which are relatively thick (1.5-4 mm diameter) and green, not glaucescent; grows in the SE Mediterranean, in the north of Libya and Egypt reaching through the S to Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula. Another similar species, also lianescent and with scabrid branches is E. foliata Boiss. ex C.A. Mey. (including other taxa described as E. rollandii Maire and E. ciliata Fisch. & C.A. Mey., E. alte C.A. Mey.) (Ara. Egypt: Alda, adam), which is characterised also by its climbing habit, although sometimes appears as a very small ramose shrub, its very thin branchlets (0.5-1.5 mm diameter), glaucescent and very scabrid, and its cones are white when ripe (compared to the rest of the region’s species, which are usually reddish); it grows in semiarid and particularly desert terrain, distributed from the central High Atlas in the N, to the Adrar of Mauritania to the S and towards the E, in Algeria, Libya and Egypt, reaching India.
Conservation status:
In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species E. altissima, E. foliata and E. aphylla are listed at a global level as Least Concern (LC) (Bell & Bachman, 2011).