沙拐枣 sha guai zao

Calligonum dielsianum K. S. Hao; C. potaninii Losinskaja.

Shrubs 25-150 cm tall. Old branches spreading, flexuous, grayish white or light yellow-gray; herbaceous branchlets of current year gray-green, jointed; joints 0.6-3 cm. Leaves linear, 2-4 mm; ocrea united to leaf. Pedicel 1-2 mm, slender, jointed below middle. Flowers 2 or 3, at leaf axil, white or light red. Tepals spreading in fruit, ovate, ca. 2 mm. Fruit broadly ellipsoid, 0.8-1.2 cm × 7-11 mm. Achenes linear, narrowly ellipsoid, or broadly ellipsoid, not to very coiled; ribs prominent or not, each with 2 or 3 rows of bristles; bristles dense, ca. as long as or slightly longer than width of achenes, slender, breakable, not or slightly enlarged at base, 2- or 3-branched from middle. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jun-Aug. 2n = 18*, (27*).

Mobile, semimobile, or stable sand dunes, deserts; 500-1800 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Xinjiang [Mongolia].