The Enduring Sahara Desert Plants

The Sahara Desert is often considered bereft of life.  While it is something of a barren wasteland, there are enough Sahara Desert plants that it can also be described as teaming with life.  Conditions such as little water or hot temperatures aren’t as important as the way that plants adapt to survive in this harsh environment.

Some aquatic plants persist in the same way as do annual plants, with dormant stages in their life history that are stimulated to develop by occasional sufficient rainfall. Although being a desert area, one can notice annual rainfall in many regions of this vast land area.

Many people don’t realize that after the last ice age the Sahara Desert was quite a different place than it is today.  The types of Sahara desert plants that existed there received much more moisture.  Today many of the plant species there not only can make it with little water, they do better when the water is scarce as it is in a desert.  It’s like people who live in cold climates.  The cold may look difficult, but they would die in a warmer environment.

Typical Sahara Desert plants include shrubs and grasses.  Shrubs often have large root systems that pull moisture from a very large area.  The grasses in the desert won’t become sick and green like they would in a suburban yard, but they do okay.  The trees are similar, don’t look for thick canopies.

Leafs have far too much surface area to be practical for Sahara desert plants.  Evaporation is an enemy in the desert.  Plants can’t afford to lose too much moisture.  A large surface, such as a leaf, promotes evaporation.  Needles and spines, however, don’t have as much surface area and thus evaporation is less rapid.  The same reason applies to why cacti have thick trunks, so evaporation is less rapid.  Hanging onto every drop of available moisture is most important.

It’s not just dry heat Sahara Desert plants must withstand, it’s also a soil rich in salts.  Halphytes thrive in the desert, that is plants that are fine with a lot of salt.

The Sahara desert can be rough.  But Sahara Desert plants grow and thrive because life always finds a way.