THE TAMARISK FAMILY 



TAMARICACE^ Lindley 



HIS family comprises 4 genera, with nearly 100 species of trees, shrubs, 

 or partly woody herbs, natives of southern Europe, northern Africa, 

 and central and southern Asia. They are pecuHary ornamental, but 

 of little economic value. The bark is astringent, and has been used, 

 in tanning and dyeing. 



TamaricacecB have alternate entire, usually very small or scale-Hke, often 

 imbricated leaves without stipules. The small flowers are mostly perfect, regular, 

 in spikes, racemes, or panicles; the calyx consists of 5, rarely 4 or 6, imbricated 

 sepals; the corolla of an equal number of distinct petals; stamens 5 to many, their 

 filaments free and distinct, the anthers opening lengthwise; ovary of 2 to 5 united 

 carpels, superior, upon a lo-lobed or obsolete disk, i-celled, with 3 to 5 basal 

 placentas; styles 3 to 5, distinct; ovules 2 to many on each placenta. Fruit a dry 

 capsule, its seeds erect, small, each terminated by a tuft of hairs; there is no endo- 

 sperm. One species has become naturalized in our area. 



TAMARISK 



GENUS TAMARIX LINN^US 

 Species Tamarix gallica Linnasus 



HIS small tree or shrub of southern Europe is cultivated for ornament 

 from Massachusetts southward, and has become naturalized in the 

 southern States, especially in Texas, where it occurs in thickets, waste 

 places or roadsides, and reaches a height of 6 meters, with a trunk 

 diameter of 3 dm.; also in Bermuda, the Bahamas and Haiti. It is also known 

 as French tamarisk, Heath, Cypress, and Flowering cypress. 



The branches are slender, wand-Hke, and spreading. The bark is thin, fissured 

 into flat, elongated, dark brown ridges. The twigs are numerous, somewhat 

 clustered, pendulous, slender and round, purphsh red, and entirely covered with 

 thin, imbricated scale-Hke leaves; these are awl-shaped, about i mm. long, sharp- 

 pointed, glaucous, whitish or bluish, persistent in mild chmatcs. The ven- small 

 flowers appear in summer, are nearly sessile, in conspicuous slender panicles 2 to 

 3 dm. long, of numerous spikes; the calyx has 5 triangular persistent sepals about 

 0.5 mm. long; the corolla is white or pink, deciduous; the stamens have free fila- 

 ments, thickened at the base; ovary free, sharp-pointed. The fruit is a pyramidal 

 capsule about i mm. long, with many small seeds. 



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