Appearance
The almost upright 65 centimetres fleshy, stiff-haired, woody annual "F. tenacissima" appears after the rains in rocky and difficult to grow in places like the Sahel of Mauritania, and Northeast Africa, and now recorded in Niger. It is a chamaephyte that is much relished by livestock.Leaves and stems: 5 millimetres to 20 millimetres leaf stalks. Broad-side of leaves are squared-oval to round 1 centimetre to 5 centimetres long and 1 centimetre to 7 centimetres wide. Upper leaf surfaces have straight and hooked hairs and the lower leaf is densely white-wooly with hair. Small leafy outgrowth at the base of the leaf are rounded, 3 millimetres to 5 millimetres long, 1.5 millimetres to 2.5 millimetres wide, persistent and dry—not green.
Flowers: Five involucral bracts narrow and tapering to a point, 5 millimetres to 6 millimetres long and densely wooly. Four to eight male flowers and two to six female flowers in the center of the flower head which is attached right to the stem. Three unequal sepals; 3 millimetres long stamen with a pointy anther and a conical 2 millimetres long ovary which is surrounded with dense wool. The stigma is as long as the ovary.
Seeds: Achenes are elliptical, reddish-brown and 2 millimetres long.
Naming
"Forsskaolea tenacissima" was named in mourning of a student of Carl Linnaeus, a Swede named Peter Forsskål, who died while gathering botanical and zoological specimens from the Arabia Felix. Linnaeus named this plant "Forsskaolea tenacissima" because the plant was as stubborn and persistent as the student had been.
Distribution
Common in arid and semi-arid waste lands in sandy clay gravelly soils from sea level to 1,200 metres like Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands, semi-steppe shrublands, shrub-steppes, deserts and extreme deserts.
Uses
The inner bark is used by natives in Sahara for manufacturing rope.References:
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