Genus Rheum Rank Species | ||
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Similar Rheum tibeticum, Iris mariae, Tulipa polychroma, Rheum webbianum, Rheum nobile | ||
Rheum palaestinum, the desert rhubarb, is a plant indigenous to Israel and Jordan, with the most highly efficient water gathering capabilities known in botany. A
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 evelution 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, tighghtly capping the ground to harvest water by sub-foliar condensation of vapuor rising from the earth.http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/botbel/plecevo/2016/00000149/00000002/art00001
