白琐琐 bai suo suo

Arthrophytum acutifolium (Minkwitz) Minkwitz; A. ammodendron (C. A. Meyer) Litvinov var. acutifolium Minkwitz; A. persicum (Bunge) Savicz-Ryczegorski.

Trees small, 1-7 m tall. Bark gray-white; wood hard, brittle; older branches gray-brown or light yellow-brown, usually fissured annular; annual branches pendulous, internodes 0.5-1.5 cm × ca. 1.5 mm. Leaves appressed to branch, scale-like, triangular, apex awned; leaf axil cottony. Flowers borne on dwarf, lateral spurs of previous year's branches; bractlets navicular, ovate, equaling perianth, margin membranous. Perianth segments ovate, apex obtuse or subacute; abaxial wing borne 1/4 of distance from apex, light yellow, flabellate or suborbicular, 4-7 mm wide, obscurely veined, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin repand or subentire. Disk obscure. Utricle light yellow-brown; pericarp not adnate to seed. Seed ca. 2.5 mm in diam.; embryo spiral, abaxially convex, turbinate, adaxially plane. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct.

Dunes. N Xinjiang [NE Africa, SC and SW Asia].

This species is very useful for sand-binding and afforestation. It has been introduced to sand areas of Gansu, Nei Mongol, and Ningxia for this purpose.