TAMARISCINE^— TAMARISK TRIBE 13 



thriving well by the sea or on the saline soils of deserts. The bark is 

 astringent, and many species are remarkable for the large quantity of sulphate 

 of soda afforded hy their ashes. 



Tamarisk {Tdmarix). — Calyx 5-parted ; petals 5; stamens 5 or 10; 

 stigmas feathery. Named from the Tamarisei, the people who inhabited the 

 banks of the Tamaris, now the Tambra, in Spain, where this plant is in great 

 abundance. 



Tamarisk (Tdmarix). 



Common Tamarisk (T. gallica). — Leaves quite smooth, somewhat 

 narrowed at the base ; flower-buds egg-shaped ; capsule rounded at the base 

 and narrowed upwards. Plant perennial. This pretty shrub is very orna- 

 mental to many parts of our coast, with its rich deep verdure, and its 

 delicate red branches clothed, in July, with elegant spikes of pale rose- 

 coloured flowers. It is A^ery common in seaside gardens, and in many places 

 by the sea grows in profusion, without culture, on rocks, cliffs, and sandy 

 soils. Truly wild, however, the plant is not, in any part of the kingdom ; 

 for although it is abundant in some places, as at Hastings and Sandgate, it 

 was doubtless originally planted there. It is often said to be wild in 

 Cornwall, as Tamarisk shrubs abound about the Lizard and along the south 

 coast, having probably been brought thither from the opposite coast of 

 France. The plant is said to have been introduced into the Lizard district 

 by a carter, who, having lost his whip, gathered one of the long flexible 

 branches of the Tamarisk at St. Michael's Mount, which, at the conclusion 

 of his journey, he stuck into the ground, where it grew and flourished. Nor 

 is this an unlikely mode of its propagation, for it grows from cuttings as 

 freely as the willow. 



Fuller, in his "Worthies of England," remarks: — "The Tamarisk was 

 first brought over by Bishop Grindal out of Switzerland, Avhere he was an 

 exile under Queen Mary, and planted in his garden at Fulham, where the 

 soil, being moist and fenny, well complied with the nature of this plant ; yet 

 it groweth not up to be timber, as in Arabia, though often to that substance 

 that cups of great size are made thereof." Richard Hakluyt also says that 

 in his time the plant had so increased that there were thousands of the trees 

 in this country, and adds, "Many people have received great health by this 

 plant." This writer published his work in 1582. In those days the cup 

 made of Tamarisk Avas thought to improve the flavour of ale ; the spit made 

 of its wood imparted an excellence to the meat roasted upon it ; and its use 

 was considered so beneficial to persons afilicted with diseases of the spleen, 

 that physicians ordered patients to eat from dishes made of Tamarisk wood. 

 It also had other domestic uses, as Browne in his " Pastorals " refers to it — 



"Amongst the rest, the Tamarisk there stood, 

 For housewives' besoms onely kaowne most good." 



And Pliny mentions its use for brooms by the Romans. Dioscorides praised 

 it as a cure for every disease. It is the Myrica of the Greeks and Romans ; 

 and to the reader of the Classics is connected with many poetic associations. 

 "It is so referred to," says Mr. Baxter, "in the Pastorals of Theocritus and 

 Virgil, and manj^ times in the Eclogues of the latter poet ; Ovid also names 



