Zygophyllum gaetulum Webb & Maire
Z. album subsp. gaetulum (Webb & Maire) Quézel & Santa, Tetraena gaetula (Webb & Maire) Beier & Thulin.
Spa.: Morsana, uva de mar ceniza. Ara.: Äggaya, bu griba, tartir, haaka, khoressa, ensal, qillam, r’ardem. Tam.: Tayerta, tazluzt, haggaïa, tirta, moïlhe.
Small subshrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, highly branched and compact, it can reach 25-30 cm in height. Branches flexible, articulated and brittle. Leaves up to 1.5 cm long, green-glaucous to pink-purple, very thick, bifoliolate, pedunculate and with leaflets ranging from cylindrical to bell-shaped, elongated. Flowers axillary, pink. Fruit a schizocarp, ranging from elongate-bell shape to cylindrical, 2-3 times longer than wide, with the bottom part (c. 6 mm long) pentagon-tubulous and the upper part expanded or not.
Flowering:
April to June.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Halophytic thickets on rocky and sandy substrates (dunes, wadis beds, etc.) in desert environments.
Observations:
Within this taxon another 2 subspecies have been described, which sometimes were treated as 2 separate species. Z. gaetulum subsp. gaetulum is characterised by its cylindrical or subcylindrical leaflets, purple-pink and a fruit bell-shaped, very oblong (7-15 × 3.5-6 mm) and with an expanded apex into recurved lobes. Z. gaetulum subsp. waterlotii (Maire) Beier & Thulin, differs from the type subspecies by its polymorphic leaflets, green-glaucous and a cylindrical fruit, less oblong (5.4-10(12) × 2.6-4.7 mm) and not expanded at the apex.
The distribution of both subspecies is far from being clarified, especially since in Aaiun both areas of distribution overlap and there is a gradient of forms between them. Subsp. gaetula is distributed across the eatern Canary Islands, S of the Anti-Atlas and littoral and sublittoral NW Sahara, reaching further inland to the W of Algeria; whislt subsp. waterlotii has a more wider and more southern distribution, eastern Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, and in the continent throughout the oceanic Sahara reaching to the S up to central Senegal. The latter subspecies has also been cited in Mali, but it is not known whether these are isolated populations or there is a continuous area of distribution up to the Atlantic Ocean.
Another taxon closely related to this species is Z. coccineum L. [Z. desertorum Forssk., T. coccinea (L.) Beier & Thulin] (Ara.: Rotreit, balbal, qalam). It is a subshrub, 20-40(50) cm, branched, erect. Leaves green-glossy, glabrous, with stipules (1.5 × 1.5 mm), petiolate (1-2.2 cm) and bifoliolate (0.5-1.5 cm), leaflets cylindrical. Sepals with scarious margins and petals (6-8 mm) white, spatulate and longly unguiculate. Filaments with basal scale. Schizocarp (0.5-1 cm) cylindrical or with 5 angles, truncated and style 0.5-1 mm. Seeds (0.5- 1 mm) ovoid, acute and tuberculate. It grows in wadis in desert environments and saline soils across the Middle East and coastal areas of the Red Sea, from Eritrea and Yemen to Egypt and Palestine.
Conservation status:
Taxa relatively common species and widely distributed. They are not considered threatened. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) it has been considered as Least Concern (LC).