Getting back to my series on desert plant adaptations, let’s discuss some of the ways that leaves have adapted to help plants survive the hot and dry conditions of the desert wadis.

Besides dropping all of their leaves like drought-deciduous plants, some plants simply have smaller or fewer leaves. Smaller leaves means there is less surface area open to the wind and sun, and so less water is lost through transpiration. Semi-shrubs and shrubs may have large leaves in the winter that are shed during the dry season and are replaced with smaller leaves in the summer. Artemisia herba-alba and Phlomis aurea both have smaller summer leaves.

Another strategy that helps conserve water is folding or rolling up the leaves so that the stomata are facing inwards, reducing the surface area subject to transpiration. This adaptation is employed by Helianthemum species, Fumana thymifolia, and many perennial grasses.

But it’s not just transpiration that leads to water loss. Leaves also lose water through their cell walls. To combat this, the leaves of some desert plants have a waxy coating or a thick cuticle, the film covering the surface, which helps seal in and protect moisture already in the leaves. Most xerophytes have a thick cuticle.

Hair on the leaves and stems also helps reduce water loss by providing shade and trapping water vapor near the plant’s surface. Artemisia herba-alba, Phlomis spp., Majorana syriaca, and other plants utilize this adaptation.

Plants needs energy from the sun to photosynthesize. What energy they don’t use to make food is used to heat the leaf up. That is very useful for plants growing in cold climates whose leaves need to be a bit warmer to photosynthesize but not so necessary for desert plants, which must reflect some of this solar radiation or risk over-heating. How do they do this? Some plants, like Capparis sinaica, have a waxy coating on their summer leaves which gives them a lighter – and more reflective – color than their winter leaves.

Leaves of Atriplex species also have a different color depending on the season, but they don’t use a waxy coat. Instead, the leaves are covered in vesicular hairs that contain a salty solution. In the winter, the hairs are full and transparent, allowing more absorption of the sun’s energy. In the summer, the water evaporates and the hairs dry out causing the leaves to be a lighter color that reflects the sun’s rays.

You can read more about each of the species photographed above in my book. In the next post in this series, we’ll learn about stem adaptations. Stay tuned!