About

"Halophytes.tn" is a database dedicated to the study of the salt tolerant plants in Tunisia living on halomorphic soils along the coast, sebkhas, lakes and chotts. These halophyte plants, for the most part, occupy an important place in ethnopharmacology as well as in traditional medicine. Nowadays, it has been shown that these plants accumulate, in conditions of biotic and / or abiotic constraints, biologically active molecules, polyphenols which are the richest class in natural antioxidants. Thus, they possess different interesting biological properties in the medicinal field. They are also of great interest thanks to their applications in the food industry as dyes, additives and preservatives, in cosmetics as sunscreen for protection against UVA and UVB radiation, and in the pharmaceutical and medicinal field as an active ingredient.

Database Objectives

As part of promoting local and introduced halophytes, the database "Halophytes.tn" sets the following specific objectives:

1. Facilitate the identification of Halophytes in Tunisia for scientific researchers using a succinct and clear botanical description and photos taken from the ground, thus allowing them to orient their choice towards the halophytes which were not -or not well – studied.
2. Highlight the potential of halophytes in Tunisia: medicinal, pharmaceutical, agro-food, nutraceutical, genetic, economic, cosmetic, bioremediation etc ...
3. Valorize the results of the research work carried out on these plants within (LPE) and (LPAM) laboratories in Borj Cedria Technology Park, elsewhere in Tunisia and around the world.

Our database will be updated in the future and we encourage users to highlight errors to the corresponding author.

Acknowledgements:
The authors Dr. Henda MERCHAOUI and Professors Riadh KSOURI, Chedly ABDELLY and Mohsen HANANA would like to acknowledge:
(i) The botanists for their help in identifying species, Professor Abderrazak Smaoui at the Center of Biotechnology of Borj-Cedria, Professor Werner Rodolfo Greuter, the first Director of the University's Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum in Berlin.
(ii) The former technician at the botany laboratory of the Tunisian National Institute of Agronomic Research Mr Mounir Gasri.
(iii) The botanists at ‘IdentiPlante’ (http://identify.plantnetproject.org)
(vi) The computer engineers Adel Jebeniani, Hassen Harzallah and Mohammed Jebeniani for the database design training and the beneficial corrections they made.
PS: This database was designed as part of Henda MERCHAOUI's PhD thesis defended on July the 9th, 2019.

links to species