Abstract
According to a survey conducted from 1995 to 2004 in the eight regions with salinized soils, China contains 587 halophytes representing 242 genera and 71 families: apart from three species of ferns, all are angiosperms. Physiologically, Chinese halophytes include salt-secreting halophytes, euhalophytes, and pseudohalophytes. Ecologically, Chinese halophytes include zerohalophytes, mesohalophytes, and hydrohalophytes. Chinese halophytes represent a salt-tolerant gene pool that might be used to increase the salt tolerance of conventional crops through breeding, but also have considerable potential as salt-tolerant economic crops providing food, forage, medicine, and industrial material in salinized soils.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Professor Fusuo Zhang in China Agriculture University for offering helpful editorial advice during the revision of the manuscript, and Dr. Jinbiao Xi for providing some new species of halophytes in Xinjiang.
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Responsible Editor: Timothy J. Flowers.
An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0668-8
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Zhao, K., Song, J., Feng, G. et al. Species, types, distribution, and economic potential of halophytes in China. Plant Soil 342, 495–509 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0470-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0470-7