Slender Russian Thistle

Salsola collina was reported for the first time for North America from Minnesota by J. W. Moore (1938). It was collected in Kansas in 1923 (R. E. Brooks et al. 1976), but misidentified. Later it was discovered in Colorado, Iowa, and Missouri (V. L. Cory 1948; W. Schapaugh 1958; V. Muhlenbach 1979). Reports of S. collina for Arizona and New York are based on specimens cited by S. Rilke (1999). Its actual distribution seems to be underestimated due to the common and constant confusion with deviant forms of S. tragus. In the future, S. collina may be expected to occur within the major portion of the present range of S. tragus.

This plant is used in Chinese medicine to reduce blood pressure.

Herbs, 10-100 cm, sparsely to densely papillose or hispid (rarely subglabrous). Stems erect, rarely ascending, branched above base (occasionally with slender branches near base); branches straight or slightly arcuate. Leaves alternate; blade filiform to narrowly linear, 1-2 mm wide, less than 1 mm wide in herbarium specimens, usually not fleshy, sometimes semi-amplexicaul at base, apex with soft bristle (rarely subspinescent). Inflorescences not interrupted, dense, 1-flowered (rarely 2-3-flowered), often also in axils of proximal leaves and branches, lower ones tightly enclosed in bracts and bracteoles, forming gall-like caducous balls at maturity; bracts alternate, strongly imbricate and appressed at maturity, base not distinctly swollen, apex acuminate into subulate spine. Flowers: bracteoles becoming connate basally and adnate to perianth segments; perianth segments wingless or with narrow, erose wing at maturity, apex acute, weak and flaccid, glabrous; fruiting perianth ca. 2-5 mm diam. 2n = 18.

Herbs annual, 20-100 cm tall. Stem branched from base; branches alternate, spreading, green, white or purple-red striate, hispid or subglabrous. Leaves spreading or slightly curved, filiform-terete, 2-5 cm × 0.5-1.5 mm, hispid, base slightly expanded, decurrent, margin membranous, apex spinose mucronate. Inflorescence spikelike; bracts and bractlets tightly appressed to rachis; bracts ovate, abaxially longitudinally keeled, margin membranous, apex spinose mucronate; bractlets narrowly lanceolate, apex spinose mucronate. Perianth segments ovate-lanceolate, membranous, hardened in fruit, abaxially crested; portion of segment above crest inflexed, with others forming a plane surface tightly appressed to utricle or sometimes connivent distally into a small cone, subleathery, apex acute, membranous. Anthers 1-1.5 mm. Stigmas filiform, 1.5-2 × as long as style. Seed horizontal or oblique. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Sep-Oct.

Annual, (5)10-40(-60) cm high, erect, rarely prostrate, + hispidulous, rarely glabrous, loosely branched from base, branches ascending or horizontally spreading, terminating in dense, elongated, narrow spikes. Leaves filiform, 20-40 x 0.5-1 mm, semi-terete, in upper part + terete, apically with an up to 0.8 mm long weak spine, lower margins hispid ciliate. Flowers hidden by the imbricate bases of bracts and bracteoles. Bracts significantly different from leaves, 5-9 mm long, with much widened sheathing base appressed to the axis, blades erect to ascending or apically slightly recurved, spine 0.5-1 mm long, the lower up to 2x longer than bracteoles, the upper equalling them; bracteoles narrow lanceolate, 3-7 mm long, spine 0.6-1 mm long. Tepals oblong, 1.5-2.3 mm long, the outer 0.4-0.7 mm wide, membranous throughout, glabrous, all 1-veined, very rarely the outermost 3-veined, transverse line at 1/3-1/2, midrib surpassing the line only in the outermost tepal; apex often crenulate to eroso-dentate. Anthers 0.9-1.4 mm long, including the minute appendage, divided for 1/2; filaments up to 2.5 mm long; disc thin, with distinct semi-circular lobes and papillose margin. Style 0.3-0.5 mm long; stigmas 0.8-1.5 mm long, filiform, inside with long papillae. Regular fruits remaining enclosed by the sheathing bases of bract and bracteoles, small, lense-shaped, dorsally and ventrally flattened, 1.5-2 mm wide and high, only one tepal with a poorly developed wing, the others with crenulate scale-like or horn-like outgrowths; lower part of tepals almost membranous, at base rounded, just above the base with 5 shallow grooves, tepal lobes at first horizontally incurved, the upper parts papery, forming a 0.8-1 mm long somewhat irregular column, enclosed by bracts and bracteoles; top of tepal lobes ± erect, papery; seed oblique or vertical; below the terminal spikes sometimes wingless complex fruits made up of condensed lateral spikes with 2-3 flowers, or single flowers surrounded by glabrous, shining, gibbous, hardened and coalescent bases of bract and bracteoles; the fruit itself barrel-shaped. Utricle horizontal.

introduced; Ont., Sask.; Ariz., Colo., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.H., N.Mex., N.Y., N.Dak., Okla., S.Dak., Utah, Vt.; Eurasia.

Distribution: Very widespread from Russia to Middle Asia, C Asia and E China. Introduced in N America and Europe.

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Fruiting summer-fall.

Waste places, roadsides, railway areas, cultivated fields, disturbed natural and seminatural plant communities; 100-2000m.

Pluriregional; originally Pontic-S Siberian and C Asiatic but widespread as adventitious species.

Rather rare but locally frequent in the dry valleys of N Pakistan, preferably on ruderal sites, in dry-farmed fields and along ditches in montane and subalpine environments from 1500-3000 m, from 2500 m onwards also on coarse-textured slopes. The species is highly variable in size and in habit due to different environmental factors (water, nutrients, radiation, grazing etc.), as has been stressed already by Hook.f. (1886). Morphologically and ecologicallly it approaches closely to the sympatric S. jacquemontii.

Around farm houses, roadsides, waste places. Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia; C Asia; naturalized in C and W Europe and North America].

Salsola chinensis Gandoger.

S. kali L. subsp. collina (Pall.)Bolòs & Vigo in Butl. Inst. Catalana Hist. Nat., Secc. Bot. 1: 89. 1974; S. erubescens Schrader, Ind. Sem. Horti Acad. Gotting. 5. 1834; S. ircutiana Gand. in Bull. Soc. Bot. France 60: 421. 1913; S. chinensis Gand., l.c. 421. 1913.

Erect or prostrate (in mountainous areas) annual up to 70 cm, stems reddish, glabrous or scarcely papillate. Lower leaves up to 80.0 × 0.5–1.0 mm, much shorter in the middle and upper stem parts, linear or filiform, with a mucro 0.6–2.0 mm long. Flowers in axillary clusters and arranged in the main inflorescence. Flower clusters (located below the main inflorescence) abundant, consisting of two flowers surrounded by bracts and bracteoles that are connate almost to the top and not gibbous basally; perianth segments of each flower membranous, glabrous, r-shaped, their tips appressed to each other, hardened and not forming a tight conus, with white, small tubercles 0.3–0.5 mm long or without any projections in the flexure; styles with stigmas ca. 1.0 mm; fruits 1.0–1.3 mm, depressed roundish. Flowers in the main inflorescence with (almost) free, basally not gibbous bract and bracteoles (that are appressed to the stem), hermaphrodite; perianth segments membranous, glabrous, r-shaped at fruiting stage, (1.5)2.0–2.5 mm long, membranous above the flexure and not forming a distinct conus; two abaxial segments usually have short erose wings (up to 1.0(1.5) × 1.5 mm), their tips (above outgrowths) hyaline and not stout; anthers 0.6–0.9 mm long; styles with stigmas ca. 1.0 mm; fruits lenticular, 1.1–1.5 mm. Seed seems to be vertical (due to anacrostyly) but is indeed horizontal.

See Fig. 46.