密枝猪毛菜 mi zhi zhu mao cai

Herbs annual, 10-40 cm tall. Stem branching from base, densely furfuraceous hairy, sparsely sinuate pilose; branches dense, spreading or slightly flexuous, white, slender. Leaves terete, 5-10 × 1-1.5 mm, usually early deciduous, base slightly expanded and recurved, apex obtuse. Flowers solitary, borne throughout plant; bracts broadly lanceolate; bractlets broadly triangular, margin membranous, apex acute. Perianth (including wings) 8-10 mm in diam. in fruit; segments lanceolate, abaxially winged from middle in fruit, furfuraceous hairy and pilose; portion of segment above wing connivent with others, tightly appressed to utricle, lanceolate, subfleshy, hairy; wing with a space between wings of adjacent segments, yellow-brown, obovate or rhomboid, pellucid, subpapery, several veined. Anthers free from base to apex; anther appendage ovate. Stigmas linear, apex obtuse. Seed horizontal. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Sep-Oct.

Deserts, dunes. N Xinjiang [C Asia].

According to Freitag and Rilke (in Fl. Iranica), Salsola implicata differs from S. sclerantha C. A. Meyer only by such unstable characters as recurved leaves and yellow perianth wings, and thus it is better treated as a synonym of the latter species.