Ephedra funerea

Ephedra funerea is a species of Ephedra, known by the common name Death Valley jointfir or Death Valley ephedra.

Death Valley jointfir
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Division: Gnetophyta
Class: Gnetopsida
Order: Ephedrales
Family: Ephedraceae
Genus: Ephedra
Species:
E. funerea
Binomial name
Ephedra funerea

It is native to the Mojave Desert of California, Arizona and Nevada. It is named after a population in the Funeral Mountains, in Death Valley National Park.[1][2]

Native Americans and Mormon pioneers drank a tea brewed from this plant called Mormon Tea or Indian Tea.

Description

The Ephedra funerea shrub is made up of erect twigs which are gray-green when new and age to gray and cracked. There are tiny leaves at nodes along the twigs. Male plants produce pollen cones at the nodes which are up to 8 millimeters long, and female plants produce seed cones which are slightly longer and may grow on stalks.[3][4]

gollark: The GTech™ supercomputing and neural emulation clusters give you 70123%.
gollark: And we're all in on it.
gollark: What if ubq made all the entries except one, where that one is yours?
gollark: If I can make all of them at once, so can Olivia.
gollark: They are NEVER enough, apiochromatohazard.

References


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.