''Akhania'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s in the amaranth family,

Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae ( ) is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus '' Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, maki ...

. It includes three species native to the eastern Mediterranean and western and central Asia, ranging from Greece through western Asia to the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan. ''Akhania'' includes small shrubs or subshrubs 20 to 100 cm tall. The plants have a bushy habit, with several or numerous stems, small linear or broadly lanceolate leaves which are bright green, glaucous, or grayish and 5–35 mm long by 1–3 mm wide.Sukhorukov AP, Fedorova AV, Kushunina M, Mavrodiev EV (2022). ''Akhania'', a new genus for ''Salsola daghestanica'', ''Caroxylon canescens'' and ''C. carpathum'' (Salsoloideae, Chenopodiaceae, Amaranthaceae). ''PhytoKeys'' 211: 45-61. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.211.89408 The genus ''Akhania'' is named after the Iranian botanist Hossein Akhani. Its species were formerly placed in the genera ''

Salsola ''Salsola'' is a genus of the subfamily Salsoloideae in the family Amaranthaceae. The genus ''sensu stricto'' is distributed in Australia, central and southwestern Asia, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Common names of various members of this ...

'' or '' Caroxylon''. A genetic and morphological analysis concluded that the three species formed a distinct clade which is sister to ''Caroxylon''.

Species

Three species are accepted: *'' Akhania canescens'' – western and central Asia, from Turkey and Palestine to Afghanistan and Kazakhstan *'' Akhania carpatha'' – the Greek Islands of Crete, Karpathos, and the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

*'' Akhania daghestanica'' – endemic to

Dagestan Dagestan ( ; ; ), officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Fede ...

in the northeastern Caucasus.

References

{{Taxonbar, from= Q123603998 Amaranthaceae genera Flora of the Palearctic realm Amaranthaceae