Nitraria roborowskii Seeds | Nitraria

Nitraria shrub with whitish spiny branches, fleshy grey-green leaves and clusters of red fruit — Nitraria (*Nitraria roborowskii*): Nitrariaceae, saline desert of northwestern China and Mongolia.

LATIN NAME: Nitraria roborowskii

COMMON NAME: Nitraria, Roborowski’s Nitraria

Plant Profile

Nitraria roborowskii is a spiny salt-desert shrub of northwestern China and Mongolia, with fleshy leaves and red, salty-sweet drupes. It grows in the basins of Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, and across the border into Mongolia and Kazakhstan, on saline and alkaline soils around salt lakes, dry river beds and the edges of oases, where the water table is salty and the summer is hot and rainless. The plant is low and spreading, one to two metres tall, with whitish, spine-tipped branches and small, thick, grey-green leaves that drop in the dry season. In late spring it carries small white flowers, and in summer the fruit ripens in clusters, red to dark purple, with a taste that is sweet, sour and distinctly salty. It is one of the shrubs that hold the edge of the desert, and it is known in Chinese as bai ci, white thorn.

Science & Biotechnology

Nitraria roborowskii is a halophyte in the Nitrariaceae, a small family of salt-tolerant shrubs that grow around the deserts of the Old World, and its tolerance of salt is built on compartmentalising sodium in vacuoles and adjusting the osmotic potential of its cells. The species is a sand-binder as well as a salt-tolerator: its roots spread widely and sucker from the base, so a single plant can trap a dune and start a thicket. It flowers after the spring rains and fruits in mid-summer, and the fruit is eaten by birds and by foxes, which disperse the seed in their droppings. The seed coat is hard and germination in the wild is erratic, timed to unusually wet years. The plant is long-lived and slow growing, and its spines are stout enough to deter grazing until the leaves are gone. In the Chinese literature it is treated as a nurse plant, because tree seedlings survive better in its shade than on open sand.

Uses & Benefits

The fruit is gathered and eaten fresh, and it is made into juice, jam and a fermented drink in parts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia; the salty-sweet taste is unusual and takes getting used to. The seed is used in Chinese medicine, and the bark and root have local uses for stomach complaints. The plant is planted in desertification control, where its suckering habit and deep roots stabilise dunes and saline edges, and it is used as a nurse for Haloxylon and other trees in shelterbelt work. It is browsed by camels and goats in dry years, though the spines limit access. In a dry garden it makes a curious, tough shrub for a saline or alkaline site, with fruit that is worth tasting once. It is not a plant for rich soil or irrigation, which makes it useful where nothing else will grow.

Growing from Seed

Scarify the hard seed coat with sandpaper and soak it for a day before sowing; fresh seed germinates better than stored seed. Sow in spring at 20 to 25 degrees in a sandy mix, covering it lightly, and keep the compost only just moist. Germination is uneven and can take two months. Grow the seedlings in full sun and in a gritty mix, and plant out into sand or gravel where drainage is rapid and the soil is alkaline. Water to establish, then only in extreme drought; the plant rots in rich or wet ground. It spreads by suckers, so give it room, and cut out dead wood in late winter. Protect young plants from rabbits and from salt-laden wind until they are established.

Our Take

A spiny salt-desert shrub with salty-sweet red fruit and a talent for holding dunes. Plant it where the ground is poor and dry.

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