OO Re 
twisted like a screw and with several rows of long many- 
pronged bristles spread out in every direction and quite stiff 
when ripe. The fruit thus appears as a kernel set in the 
midst of a globular transparent meshwork, the diameter of 
the whole being 2—3 cm. (See fig. 28). These fruits are exceed- 
ingly mobile and roll away at the slightest breath of wind. 
The fruit of Eremosparton is a one-seeded woolly-haired 
pod, one centimetre long. The red blossoms open in May 
or June and form small racemes, but only the earlier blos- 
soms set fruit as the later ones are shrivelled up by 
the heat. 
Saxaul or Sasäk (Haloxylon Ammodendron) (fig. 14) only 
thrives well where the sand has a subsoil of clay or limestone. 
Under favourable conditions it may become a tree of 7 metres. 
Often, however, it is a much-branched shrub. As the growth 
is slow, this species does not stand sand-drift very well, and 
the young, soft, leafless shoots are also bruised and damaged 
by the sand-grains'). 
These switch trees and bushes have the following cha- 
racters in common (other details of morphology and internal 
structure are given in chap. 13). They are small trees or 
bushes; the Sand-Acacia and Saxaul occasionally become 
larger trees (8 metres). 
All of them have their leaves much reduced. Ammoden- 
dron has flat leaves, but they are small and thickly coated 
with silky hairs. The Salsola species have cylindrical cheno- 
podiaceous leaves with central water-tissue. In Calligonum, 
Eremosparton and Haloxylon the leaves are reduced to small 
scales, and the assimilatory functions are performed by the 
stems alone. 
The first-year shoots are frequently branched, sometimes 
") Saxaul is said to form vast bushlands (“forest”, comp. Lırsky above 
p. 28) east of Lake Aral (Wladimirskaja). The trees here are said to attain 
a height of 16—18 feet and have a thick tap-root. Saxaul often occurs here 
together with rushes and is supposed to stand in a certain relation to the 
Syr Darya (Jaxartes) inundation area. “The Saxaul forests everywhere begin as 
a low thorny scrub along with Tamarisks, then they become bushlands and 
finally forests.” (MIDDENDORFF p. 308). — Lipsky (1911 p. 14) denies that the 
growth of Saxaul is necessarily slow. 
