Plants & Trees

For such an arid country, the UAE has an amazing number of trees. These are mainly scattered over large areas, but sometimes they grow close together forming small forests.
Palm trees are obviously one of the most important, as the fruit, fronds and bark have been indispensable materials in the daily lives of the local people for centuries. The three largest trees of the region are the salam, the ghaf and the sidr. 
 
Acacia
(Acacia tortilis)
Of the half-dozen acacia species that are found in the UAE, the umbrella-shaped salam tree is the most common, occurring on gravel as well as on sandy plains. Its flowers are pale yellow and all parts of the tree are browsed by camels, in spite of the vicious thorns. Sometimes you can see ‘double-storey’ acacias – this happens when browsing camels cannot reach the central branches of the tree, which then get a chance to form shoots and grow a second bush on top of the lower one that is being continuously cropped.
Arabic name: salam or samr, Height: 4-6m
 
Arabian almond 
(Prunus arabica)
Notable for its beautiful white blossoms in the spring, this shrubby tree is a high-mountain plant. The long branches have small leaves that fall soon after spring and the little nuts are edible. Mountain dwellers use the hard wood of the tree to make strong handles for their small axe-head, the ‘yir’ – a handy tool for decapitating snakes.
Arabic name: mizzi, Height: 2.5m

Black mangrove 
(Avicenna marina)
The mangrove occurs in many coastal areas of the country, with the largest and oldest trees growing at Khor Kalba on the east coast. Mangroves have a special root system with ‘breathing roots’, the so-called pneumatophores that stick up out of the mud. They can also excrete excess salt through their leaves, enabling them to live in very saline conditions. Mangrove forests are important for both bird and marine life. Their roots give protection to young marine life, which in turn is a rich source of food for the birds that nest and breed in the trees or visit on migration.
Arabic name: qurm, Height: 3-6m
 
Christ thorn-tree
(Ziziphus spina-christi)
This is a common tree in wadis and plantations, growing where the underground water level is close to the surface. Its tangy fruits, called ‘nabaq’, are a favourite with both humans and animals, while goats also eat the fallen blossoms. The cultivated fruits are sold in the local markets.
Arabic name: sidr, Height: to about 10m

Date palm
(Phoenix dactylifera)
The date palm plays an important role in the culture of the desert Arabs. It is reported that there are a hundred different recipes based on dates. Besides the fruit, many other parts of the tree are used: leaves for thatching and making walls and boats, trunks for roof beams and bark for making rope. The date palm is unable to survive in the wild without a continuous supply of water, and so must have been introduced by man at some point in the distant past. 
An interesting story is told in Wendell Philips’s book Enchanting Oman. An Omani man received a letter one day, but it was already too dark to read it, so he took some dates and kneaded them into a paste from which he shaped a small bowl. He filled it with some vegetable oil and made a wick from some date palm fibres. By the light of his improvised lamp he read his letter, then he threw out the wick, drank the oil and ate the lamp.
Arabic name: nakhl, Height: to about 10m, occasionally higher
 
Ghaf
(Prosopis cineraria)
The ghaf tree grows in both sandy and rocky habitats. It can survive periods of drought because its tap root penetrates to depths of up to 65 metres to reach water reservoirs under the dunes and hills. The leaves, branches and fruits are favourite fodder for wild and domestic ungulates (hoofed mammals). Camels browse the lower branches as high as they can reach, giving the tree a shorn-off appearance, while unbrowsed trees resemble weeping willows.
Height: 10-15m

Sodom’s apple
(Calotropis procera)
Growing in sandy desert, this shrub occasionally reaches tree height and is common in overgrazed areas because goats and camels do not like eating the white latex that it produces. The large leaves are covered with fine white hairs that create a moisture-retaining microclimate close to the surface of the leaf. The fruits resemble squat bananas (not apple-shaped like those of the similar plant in North Africa) and contain thousands of seeds that are attached to long silken threads, enabling them to be carried far and wide by the wind when ripe. The wood was once used to make charcoal for the production of gunpowder.
Arabic name: ashar, Height: to 5m
 
Tecomella
(Tecomella undulata)
During the flowering season this tree is adorned with large yellow flowers. It may originally have been an introduced species, but it is now well established along the edge of several wadis and plantations. The fruits are 20cm long curved pods and the seeds are winged.
Arabic name: farfar, Height: 4-6m

​Toothbrush tree
(Salvadora persica)
This plant is most commonly found as a shrub, but it can grow into a tall, rather straggly tree. It is a food source for the caterpillars of the blue-spotted Arab butterfly. Small branches of the tree are chewed by local people to clean the teeth and massage the gums. It has tiny flowers and small red berries, as well as a strong smell reminiscent of fox urine.
Arabic name: arakh, Height: to 10m

​Wild drumstick tree 
(Moringa peregrina)
This is the most common tree at higher elevations, and is beautiful in spring when in full flower. The pink blossoms have a sweet fragrance, while the pods are 20cm long, dark brown and woody.
Arabic name: yasar, Height: to 10m 

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