Rheum palaestinum

Desert rhubarb
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Clade:Angiosperms
Clade:Eudicots
Order:Caryophyllales
Family:Polygonaceae
Genus:Rheum
Species: R. palaestinum
Binomial name
Rheum palaestinum
Feinbrun

Rheum palaestinum, the desert rhubarb, is a plant indigenous to Israel and Jordan, with the most highly efficient water gathering capabilities known in botany.[1][2]

The plant has broad, rigid leaves, with a waxy surface, and channels cut into them that funnel any water that drops onto them toward its root, with enough force to cause deep soil penetration. A Jordanian researcher discovered that the evolution of the unique morphology of the rheum's leaf was not to gather rainwater on its upper surface and drain it to the central stem as previously Israeli scientists thought, but the wrinkled leaf has specifically developed its unique "architecture" as a vapour-trap, tightly capping the ground to harvest water by sub-foliar condensation of vapuor rising from the earth.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "In Israel, a desert plant waters itself".
  2. ↑ "Israeli researchers decipher self-watering mechanism of desert rhubarb".
  3. ↑ Khammash, Ammar (14 July 2016). "A three-dimensional study of sub-foliar condensation in desert rhubarb (Rheum palaestinum, Polygonaceae)". Plant Ecology and Evolution. 149 (2): 137–143. doi:10.5091/plecevo.2016.1174.
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