EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -A halophyte is a salt-tolerant plant that grows in soil or waters of high salinity, coming into contact with saline water through its roots or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs and seashores.

Detailed explanation-2: -A halophyte is a plant that grows in high salinity. Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants but are not parasitic, for eg. orchids.

Detailed explanation-3: -Saline soils. Crops tolerant include cotton, alfalfa, cereals, grain sorghum, sugar beets, Bermuda grass, tall wheat grass and Harding grass. Salinity higher than desirable for greenhouse soils.

Detailed explanation-4: -Halophytes are well-adapted and thrive under high salinity by using two strategies, salt tolerance, and salt avoidance. Generally, halophytes follow three mechanisms of salt tolerance; reduction of the Na+ influx, compartmentalization, and excretion of sodium ions (Flowers and Colmer, 2008, 2015).

Detailed explanation-5: -Halophytes are plants which naturally survive in salt-contaminated environments and can tolerate salinity concentrations as high as 1 M NaCl (Flowers and Colmer, 2008; Kumari et al., 2015). About 1% of the total flora of the world (both dicots and monocots) are halophytic plants.