Salsola tragus

The young plant is erect, but it grows into a rounded clump of branched, tangled stems The leaves are tipped with spines that in most varieties are so sharp that the plants are best handled with gloves. On the young plant, leaves may be more than 5 cm long, succulent and more or less cylindrical; these juvenile leaves are deciduous and drop off as the plant matures. Flowers are small, pink to greenish flowers develop from the leaf axils. Each flower is subtended by 3, spine-tipped leaves. The leaves of the mature plant are persistent, leathery, broader and shorter than the young leaves (seldom more than 1 cm in length), rigid and spine-tipped. They remain on the stem till the plant dies at the end of the season. The plant becomes woody as the fruits develop. As they ripen, the plant begins to die, dries out and becomes brittle. In that state the base of the stem breaks off easily, particularly in a high wind. The plant then rolls readily before the wind and disperses its seeds as a tumbleweed. As this dead structure tumbles in the wind, it gradually degrades and falls apart, thereby spreading (possibly as many as 200,000) seeds. These seeds draw large numbers of small birds such as sparrows in the late winter and spring.