Karelinia caspia Seeds | Caspian Karelinia
LATIN NAME: Karelinia caspia
COMMON NAME: Caspian Karelinia
Plant Profile
Caspian karelinia is a perennial of the salt steppe, and it looks like a plant that has made a deal with hard ground, which it has. It grows thirty to a hundred centimetres tall from a woody base, with erect, branched stems and alternate leaves that are thick, fleshy and grey-green, often with a waxy bloom and a smooth, entire margin. The whole plant is covered in a fine, felted hair that gives it a silvery cast and reflects the sun, and the leaves are spaced widely up the stem rather than massed into a rosette.
The flower heads are small and numerous, carried in flat-topped clusters at the ends of the branches in late summer, each one a tuft of tubular florets in dull purple to lilac, without the showy ray petals of a daisy. They are visited by a wide range of small bees, wasps and flies, and the seed that follows is small, light and equipped with a pappus, so it travels on the wind. The species is native to the salt deserts around the Caspian and the Aral, across Iran and Central Asia, and into Xinjiang, Gansu and Ningxia, where it grows on solonchak, saline river terraces and the edges of dry lake beds. It is one of the characteristic plants of the salt steppe, and where grazing and water are right it forms loose, open stands rather than dense cover.
Science & Biotechnology
Karelinia belongs to the aster family, in the group of genera with disciform heads and no ray florets, and it has been included in phylogenetic studies of the Plucheeae and Inuleae, where its position has shifted as molecular data accumulated. Its ecology is more studied than its taxonomy. The species accumulates sodium and chloride in its tissues and adjusts osmotically with compatible solutes, which lets it grow on soils with electrical conductivity high enough to kill crops. Work in Xinjiang has measured its biomass, its salt uptake and its value as a fodder plant, and the results are mixed: it is palatable when young but becomes tough and salty later in the season, and livestock take it mainly in spring.
Research on the saline vegetation of the region treats the species as an indicator of moderate salinity, appearing where the salt content is high but not extreme, and giving way to Halostachys and Suaeda on the harsher ground. Studies of seed germination under salt stress show that the seed tolerates moderate salinity but that germination is delayed and reduced as concentration rises, which explains why the plant establishes mainly on the edges of salt pans and in years with spring rain. Its root system is fibrous and deep, and it holds the surface against wind erosion, which is the basis of its use in restoration.
Uses & Benefits
The plant has no pharmaceutical tradition of any consequence, and its value is agricultural and ecological. It is grazed by sheep, goats and camels in spring, cut for fuel where wood is scarce, and planted on saline land to cover the soil and slow erosion. In restoration projects it is used with tamarisk and Nitraria to build a first layer of vegetation on abandoned irrigated fields that have become too salty to crop. It is also being examined as a source of biomass for energy on land that cannot grow anything else, though the economics are not yet convincing.
In the garden it is a curiosity for a dry, salty, exposed site, and it has a certain gaunt, silvery charm in a gravel garden or a steppe planting. It needs full sun, sharp drainage and no rich feeding, and it will not tolerate wet ground in winter. It combines well with other halophytes and with grey-leaved subshrubs, and it provides late summer flower when most of the steppe planting has finished. It is not a plant for a border or for irrigation.
Growing from Seed
Sow the seed on the surface of a firmed mix with added sand, press it in without covering, and keep it moist and bright at twenty to twenty-five degrees. Germination takes two to four weeks. Adding a little salt to the water, at a concentration of a few grams per litre, improves the result and reflects the conditions the plant expects; heavy organic compost reduces it. Prick the seedlings out early, into a gritty mix, and grow them on in full sun with good ventilation.
Plant out into a free-draining, exposed site in spring, and water only until the plants are established. The species resents competition from taller vegetation and does best where the ground is open and the soil is poor. Cut the stems back in late winter to keep the clump compact, and do not mulch, which holds moisture around the crown and can rot it. Once established the plant seeds itself modestly on bare ground and needs no further attention.
Our Take
A plant for the salty, the dry and the neglected, with more ecological value than garden polish. Grow it where little else will, and it will green the ground and feed the bees.
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