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Haloxylon ammodendron, or saxaul, is a leafless desert shrub to small tree from Central Asia and northwest China, valued for drought tolerance and sand fixation. It needs full sun, sandy well-drained soil and very little water.
Haloxylon ammodendron, variously called the saxaul (Russian: саксау́л, romanized: saksaúl), black saxaul, also spelled sacsaoul or saksaul is a plant belonging to the family Amaranthaceae. "Saksaul" is a common Turkic word that entered Russian through Kazakh.
The saxaul is distributed in the lowlands of Central Asia – including southern Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, western Uzbekistan, Iran, west Afghanistan, Mongolia and China, namely Xinjiang and Gansu. It also occurs incidentally in the west of Kirghizstan and Tajikistan. It is a psammophyte, and grows in sandy deserts, on sand dunes, and in steppe up to 1,600 m (5,200 ft) above sea level. In Central Asia it often forms 'saxaul forests', in Iran it usually grows more scattered.
The saxaul is planted on a large scale in the afforestation of arid areas in China. Being highly drought-resistant, it has played an important role in the establishment of shelter belts and the fixation of sand dunes as a counter to desertification.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Haloxylon ammodendron by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
