莎车柽柳 sha che cheng liu

Shrubs, 2-3(-4) m tall. Branchlets of current year brown or deep brown. Leaves on vegetative branchlets reduced, totally adnate to branches, gray-green, amplexicaul, vaginate, apex acute. Racemes at apices of branches of current year, clustered into terminal, lax, small panicles 2-5(-8) cm × 4-6 mm; bracts ovate-lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm, subequaling or exceeding sepals, base amplexicaul, decurrent, slightly auriculate, apex acuminate. Pedicels very short, less than 1 mm. Sepals greenish, ovate-orbicular, longer than pedicels, margin membranous, semipellucid, apex acute. Petals open or half open, purplish or purple-red, obovate or narrowly elliptic, slightly oblique, 1.7-2 × 1.3-1.5 mm, ca. 2 × as long as calyx, persistent after anthesis. Disk 5-lobed. Stamens 5, slightly longer than corolla and ovary; filaments inserted at apex of disk lobes; anthers cordate, apex with conspicuous protrusions. Styles 3, 1/4-1/3 as long as ovary. Capsule 3-septicidal, ca. 5 mm; seeds black-purple, 0.5-0.6 mm. Fl. Jul-Sep.

● Salty sandy places along margins of mobile sand dunes. Xinjiang.