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The Enduring Sahara Desert Plants
By Therese | February 12, 2009
The Sahara Desert is often considered bereft of life. But enough Sahara desert plants exist to make this thought untrue. Conditions such as little water or hot temperatures aren’t as important as the way that plants adapt to survive in this harsh environment.
Some aquatic plants persist in the same way as do annual plants, with dormant stages in their life history that are stimulated to develop by occasional sufficient rainfall. Although being a desert area, one can notice annual rainfall in many regions of this vast land area.
Following the last Ice Age the Sahara desert was quite different than it is at present. The types of Sahara desert plants that existed there received much more moisture. Not only do the plants there survive with little moisture, a lot of moisture would actually kill them. Consider species that live in places like Antarctica. They’d be in trouble in places that were much warmer.
Typical Sahara Desert plants include shrubs and grasses. Since grass grows over such a large area and has an easier time of finding water. The grasses in the desert won’t become sick and green like they would in a suburban yard, but they do okay. The same can be said of the trees. Don’t expect leafy shade trees like the ones in the country pictures.
One reason leaves are a huge disadvantage for Sahara Desert plants is the amount of surface area they have. Evaporation can happen in an instant in the desert. Losing a lot of moisture would doom a plant. Wide leaves provide too much surface for evaporation. But thin needles don’t promote evaporation. The same reason applies to why cacti have thick trunks, so evaporation is less rapid. Water conservation is the key.
Sahara desert plants also have to survive in soil that’s full of salt. Many of these plans are a type that does well with salty soil – haphytes.
The Sahara Desert, as do hot deserts in general, presents a number of challenges for plants that grow there. Yet many Sahara desert plants grow and even thrive.
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