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| Friends of the Environment Centre chairman Dr Saif al-Hajry, left, announcing the new plant at a press conference |
This is the 14th year of the campaign which aims to increase community awareness of flora in Qatar and seeks to encourage individual and collective initiatives that contribute to sustainable development.
“Anabasis Setifera, from the family of chenopodiaceae is an under shrub with numerous branches, which are covered with succulent leaves,” a FEC spokesperson said.
The flowers are minute and appear in November and
December.
The halophyte (salt tolerant) plant grows in littoral salt marshes along the shores of the Gulf, especially in south-west Qatar. The habitat supporting the plant has saline soil, usually not immersed in sea water.
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| Anabasis Setifera is an under shrub |
Halophytes have immense relevance for the Gulf region and scientists are investigating the features and characteristics enabling them to tolerate and/or resist high salinity.
Such research will help scientists to develop, through genetic engineering, genetically modified organisms which tolerate and resist salinity and thereby help put land with salt soil to productive use.
“Halophytes are well known to Arabs since thousands of years,” the FEC spokesperson recalled while pointing out that they were defined as plants which contain salt in their bodies.
“When punctured, water oozes from such plants, known as ‘hamdh,’ and some are used to wash hands and utensils. Succulence of the leaves helps the plant to dilute the salts absorbed from the soil to a degree tolerated by the plant.
“It is interesting that the leaves on the old parts of the stem die and are shed in order to avoid harm from the over-accumulation of salt in the tissues of old leaves,” the spokesperson added.
