Plants of the steppe

Steppe plants are extremely diverse, but many of them can be distinguished and common features. Among them - small, narrow leaves. In some species, they have the ability to fold during a drought to protect themselves from excessive moisture evaporation. The color of the leaves is more often gray or gray-green: it is rare to see bright green foliage here. Plants of the steppes are well tolerated by the heat and lack of rain.

According to various directories, in the steppe you can see about 220 different kinds of plants. Many steppe plants have a ramified root system, which allows them to extract moisture from the ground. In the floodplains of flowing rivers, you can meet willows, and in places where groundwater approaches close to the surface of the earth - and other trees and shrubs: hawthorn, Tatar maple, wild grapes, thorns, etc. In places with saline soil, grow Special steppe plants: saline wormwood, kermek, sveda, salteras.

Unpleasant in most of the year, in early spring the steppe is transformed. At this time, before the beginning of the dry season, it is covered with a motley carpet of early-flowering plants: tulips, irises, hyacinths, crocuses, poppies. From cultivars, these steppe plants differ, primarily in smaller sizes. At the same time, their shape can be more bizarre - as, for example, in the tulip Schrenk, one of the founders of the cultivated varieties of this flower. Due to plowing up the steppe, as well as ruthless collection of flowers, this species is listed in the Red Book of Russia. Dwarfish steppe iris , as well as Schrenk's tulip, can have flowers of various shades, from yellow to violet. This species is also counted as vanishing.

Until the heat comes, bright steppe flowers already have time to give seeds. Nutrients are stored in their tubers, which will allow them to bloom in the next year. There comes the turn of plants, habitual to a drought: fescue, feather grass, wormwood. Tipchak (Valissian fescue) is an erect grass up to half a meter in height. This plant serves as a food for horses and small animals and is one of the main pasture plants in the steppe zone (for harvesting for future use the fescue is not suitable). The feather grass, a typical representative of the steppe flora, is a perennial herb with a short rhizome and narrow, long leaves resembling a wire. In total there are about 400 species of this kind, some of them are under protection. The main enemy of feather grass is uncontrolled grazing, during which this plant simply tramples down. As for wormwood, in the steppe, along with other plants, almost all of its species (there are more than 180 of them). Solid wormwood thickets usually form low varieties - for example, wormwood drooping, seaside and others.

Individual plants of the steppe (for example, Kermek) after drying form a so-called rolling-field. At the end of summer, the dried stalk of Kermek bursts from the roots with a gust of wind and rolls along the ground, scattering seeds along the way. Other stems and twigs can attach to it: as a result, a rather impressive dry lump is obtained. Kermek ordinary flowers pink, purple or yellow small flowers. Based on it, many cultural varieties are currently being developed, which are widely used in landscape design. Common species of the Sveda genus, small-leaved and creeping, on the solonchak soils are, respectively, a small shrub and one-year-old plant with blushing stems. They are willingly eaten by camels. Like them, salters also serve as a feed for cattle in the autumn-winter season. From its ashes, soda was previously produced.

All the plants of the steppe have their own characteristics, which allow them to survive in the conditions of heat and lack of moisture. These include powerful roots, early flowering in individual species, narrow leaves, etc.