Thursday, April 4, 2013

SPINY ZILLA - ZILLA SPINOSA - SILON KOZANI



This is a beautiful picture of a dry tumbleweed in the desert. Plants have many ways to disperse their seeds. Shrubs who form tumbleweeds are uprooted in the whole after they are dry, and rolled and tossed around by the wind, spreading their seeds on the way.

The one in the photo was tumbling near Eilat, and captured by my husband last month in the disappearing evening sun, during a hike with his group.
It is a zilla spinosa (silon kozani - סילון קוצני), a rounded woody perennial shrublet, native to North Africa and Arabia. The very spiny plant reaches up to one and a half meters and has small pretty pink to purple flowers. Flowering spiny zilla bushes were found nearby too.



The shrub grows on dry non salty earth in arid desert like climate. It is a lovely sight in its blooming state as well as in being a large dry ball tumbling around and around...


Photos by Uri Eshkar

11 comments:

mispapelicos said...

Amazing NATURE.
thank you for sharing, my dear Yael.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Annuk said...

What a fascinating plant... and it is so beautiful when in bloom! Nature is amazing and so very clever! Thank you for this very interesting post, I love getting to know plants I'm not familiar with!
Many hugs, dear Yael! :)

Dawn of LaTouchables said...

Yael, I've always loved tumbleweeds, but have never known anything about them. These are beautiful! Just fantastic photos from Uri, too!

Hilde said...

What a fascinating plant!! It's absolutely lovely in bloom, such beautiful purple flowers.
Interesting to learn about this shrub, and I loved the photos :)

Dies und Das vom Neckarstrand said...

Liebe Yael,
wieder wunderschöne Blüten und Bäume.
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich, was in der Wüste alles gedeiht.
Liebe Grüße
Irmi

Friko said...

Hi Yael,

that’s no tumbleweed, that’s an alien from outer space!
It’s massive.

TarracoStyle said...

me encantan las fotos de la planta rodadora!!!
que tengas un buen fin de semana.
besos

Magia da Inês said...

º° ❤♫°
Olá!

Bonitas fotos das plantas do deserto.
As flores são lindas!
Bom fim de semana!

°º♡♡♫
°º♡ Beijinhos do Brasil
º° ♡ ❤♫° ·

stardust said...

I agree with Friko. The first image made me think so. Anyway, Zilla spinosa is such a unique and lovely plant. The purple flowers are beautiful and I’d like to see in person the large dry balls tumbling around.

Yoko

Grace said...

Amazing! What a fabulously eccentric plant! Love it!

Grace said...

What a fabulously eccentric plant! I love it!