Plants of the desert and ways to adapt them to the arid climate

Plants of the desert do not define the appearance of the countryside with an arid climate. The colors of the landscape in the desert depend more on the soil than on the vegetation cover. The feature of the cover is its extreme thinning. The bulk of plants are drought tolerant species (extreme xerophytes).

Ways to retain moisture in the hot desert climate

To cope with a sharp lack of moisture, plants are helped by some devices that prevent evaporation: a greatly reduced area of leaves and their pubescence, a film on the surface of leaves of great thickness. This film is called the cuticle; It is completely waterproof. Sometimes desert plants have underdeveloped leaves in the form of tiny scales. Functions of the leaves are performed by green stems, rich in chlorophyll.

To overcome the prolonged summer drought, plants in the desert drop leaves with the onset of heat. This phenomenon is very common in arid climates.

The fleshy and succulent plants of the desert (they are called succulents) are coping in a peculiar manner with drought. They have thickened stems or leaves. Equipped with a special aquifer , plants store water in the aerial part. Outer cover cloth with a thick cuticle film protects them from strong evaporation. Such plants in the desert usually have very few stomata, which also reduces the loss of moisture.

In the deserts there are species that are completely incapable of carrying a drought. These include ephemeroids and ephemera. They grow only in the springtime, when it is still damp and not very hot in the desert, and with the onset of summer heat their overhead part dies.

There is another type of desert plant - plant-pumps, which are called phreatophytes. Even the strongest heat does not affect the bright green color of their leaves and the open flowers. This is explained by the fact that the roots of the phreatophytes penetrate extremely deeply into the soil (up to 30 m) and reach groundwater. A camel thorn is an example of this.

The leading role in the desert belongs to the woody plants. These include shrubs, semi-shrubs and even small trees (for example, saxaul).

Desert family plants and dependence of the type of vegetation cover on soil type

Desert vegetation belongs to the Compositae, bean, cruciferous and cereals. There are even sedge plants of the desert. However, the most common of them belong to the family of the Marev. Wormwood also grows well in this climate.

The composition of the desert are sandy, stony, solonchakous and clayey. Soil conditions significantly affect the nature of vegetation. For the plants of the desert, the mechanical composition of the soil is very important , which is reflected in the water supply. In clay deserts, plants are satisfied only with the amount of water that comes from the atmosphere with precipitation.

Plants of tropical deserts

In the tropical and subtropical deserts of Arabia and Africa, perennial herbs and xerophilous bushes predominate, but succulents can also be observed here. Absolutely devoid of vegetation cover sandy dunes and covered with salt crust areas.

In tropical deserts adjacent to the ocean (Western Sahara, Atacama, Mexico, California), plants belonging to the succulent type grow.

The solonchaks of the tropical belt are covered with plants such as halophilic and succulent shrubs and semi-shrubs (for example, tamarisk, saltpeter) and annual saltworts (for example, solyanka, sveda).

Plants of tropical deserts, related to phytocoenoses of oases, large valleys of rivers and deltas, differ significantly from other species. For valleys of rivers of tropical belts palms, oleanders are characteristic.

Deficiency of moisture is a serious problem for all desert plants, so in the course of evolution they have learned to adapt to prolonged drought.