A REMARKABLE PLANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3673, 5 August 1924, Page 28

A REMARKABLE PLANT.

NUTRITION THROUGH LEAVES. (From Our Own Correspondent ) SYDNEY, Julv 25. Professor Osborne, of Adelaide University, has uttered a timely warning against the extermination through indiscriminate grazing upon it, of one of Australia’s most valuable and peculiar plants—the saltbush which has saved many a pastoralist from ruin in drought time, and many a thousand head of stock from death. Throughout much of arid Australia grew the well-known salt and blue bushes the Professor said. Plant life in the saltbush country might be conveniently grouped in three classes, he pointed out. First there were the natural grasses and flowering herbs. These grew in amazing numbers after suitable heavy rains. However, tney as quickly died away, and passing into seed they formed no permanent plant societies to fix the soil. The abundance of natural grasses after suitable rains was a characteristic feature of many true deserts. Valuable as such grasses might be for feed, it was merely temporary. To maintain a large animal population in the area, longer-lived rodder plants were needed. This was especially true where, in much of arid ffioutn Australia, we had drought extending over a period of years, and not a regular alternation of wet and dry seasons. Secondly, there were many low trees and woody shrubs. Many ci these were edible, such as the mulga and sandalwood (Myoporcum,. The combined effect of sheep and rabbits had been to destroy the se, dCgs of these plants. Unless some measures could be taken to allow of seedlings to be established, ‘he ultimate extermination of s Tiaole plants as the mulga and sandalwood could onlv be a matter of time, particularly as mistletoes of various kinds had become thick on old plants. Less palatable shrubs, on the other hand, did not suffer to the same degree. Lastly there were many kinds of half-shrubby, juicyleafed plants—salt and blue bushes. These formed the most important plant covering on sometimes vast areas They were all more or less edible, but varied greatly in their palatability and feeding value. Therefore, if heavily e-razed, the more nutritions kinds tended to be eaten out beeacse they were more palatable. In extreme cases they might wholly disappear. When this was so. inedible plants, such as rnallee weeds (IZygophyllum) took the place of saltbush, or even no permanent vegetation might grow. The effect of eating out saltbush did, it was true, make room for more grasses, but as these were only annuals there might be long periods when the area was little better than a “desert.” S:\ltbushes were able to benefit by rainfalls that were too small in amount to affect the roots. Many of (he plants growing in avid regions of South Africa and the United States of America commonly stored water in their leaves or stems, which thus became very fleshy. Such succulences were surprisingly rare in arid Australia. However, the Australian salt-bushes, because of their remarkable powers to take water through the leaves, could utilize the light faffs of rain that were such features of our arid areas.