LETTER XXXIII. 



THE TAMARISK TRIBE THE SUN-DEW TRIBE HAIRS 



OF PLANTS. 



(Plate XXXIII.) 



We have scarcely a prettier shrub in our gardens 

 than the Tamarisk, with its long, deep-brown, slender 

 rods, delicately studded near the points with green 

 scale-like leaves, or bowin^ beneath the weight of 

 graceful plumes of faintly blushing blossoms ; in their 

 native places the species are still more striking. On 

 the sea-beaten cliffs of a wild shore, the dry rocky bed 

 of a winter torrent, the naked plains of Eg}"pt, the 

 islands of the Nile, the wilderness of Sinai, and the 

 desolate coast of the Red Sea ; in these and other such 

 places the Tamarisk rises with its greatest grace and 

 beauty. 



There is something in the habit of this plant so 

 peculiar, that the Botanist has always been puzzled to 

 determine with what others it should be allied ; and 

 after one incongruous association or another, it seems 

 now settled that it has no very marked affinity with 

 other plants, but really possesses so peculiar a struc- 

 ture as to form a little group by itself. 



In the gardens are two distinct kinds of Tamarisk, 

 one called the French^ with dark chocolate-brown 

 branches (Tamarix gallica), and the other called the 



