Ephedra altissima

Desfontaines 1792

Common names

Taxonomic notes

Syn.: Chaetocladus altissima (Desf.) J.Nelson 1866, Ephedra wettsteinii Buxb. Two varieties, the type and Ephedra altissima var. tibestica Maire 1935.

Description

Dioecious, climbing, much branched shrubs, up to 2 m tall; branches in whorls, greenish, scabrous. Leaves opposite or whorled, linear, slightly connate at base. Inflorescence paniculate terminal on short verticillate branches. Pollen cones in umbellate panicles, with 2-6 oval-shaped, obtuse, connate bracts; microsporangia 2-3, exerted. Seed cones in a lax panicle, pedunculate, solitary or clustered, with 2-3 pairs connate bracts, the outermost bracts short, c. 1/4-1/3 as long as the middle one. Seeds ovoid-oblong, terminating with coiled micropylar tube" (Sherif and El-Taife 1986).

Distribution and Ecology

Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Spain (Canary Islands), Tunisia, Western Sahara. Found at elevations of 10-700 m, often on rocky calcareous slopes (Bell and Bachman 2011).

Remarkable Specimens

No data as of 2023.03.03.

Ethnobotany

Observations

See the observations on iNaturalist, accessed 2021.12.29.

Remarks

The epithet means "tallest", an allusion to the plant's climbing habit.

Citations

Bell, A. and S. Bachman. 2011. Ephedra altissima. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011. https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/201672/9161344, accessed 2021.12.27.

Desfontaines, R. L. 1792. Méd. Eclairée Sci. Phys. 3(6):163. [not available online]

Maire, R. 1952. Flore de l'Afrique Du Nord. Paris: Lechevalier. 1:154.

Sherif, A. S. and A. El-Taife. 1986. Flora of Libya. Al Faateh University Faculty of Science.

See also

Boivin, Rodolphe, Martine Richard, and Guy Bellemare. 1996. Phylogenetic Inferences from Chloroplast chlB Gene Sequences of Nephrolepis exaltata (Filicopsida), Ephedra altissima (Gnetopsida). and Diverse Land Plants. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution 6(1):19.

Keith, H. G. 1965. A preliminary check-list of Libyan flora. Tripoli: Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform. 1:456.

Species profile at Plants of the World Online, accessed 2021.12.29.