THE TAMARISK 147 



Both its branches and its leaves are free from hairs ; 

 but the latter are slightly glaucous, while the colour 

 of the smooth surface of the former changes with age 

 from red or purple to brown. These numerous 

 branches are often slightly drooping; they bear the 

 scars of many fallen leaves, and are dotted with 

 " lenticels," or cork - warts. The tree commonly 

 reaches ten or fifteen feet in height, but has been 

 known to be thirty feet high in some English 

 gardens. 



The spikes of flowers, which open from July to 

 September, are about an inch long and are both 

 terminal and lateral. They are crowded with tiny 

 blossoms that measure but an eighth of an inch 

 across, and arise in the axils of minute bracts. The 

 five sepals are imbricate in the bud ; the little petals 

 may be flesh-pink or white ; and the five red-anthered 

 stamens spring from a five-pointed disc below the 

 ovary. This disc is probably of considerable im- 

 portance in the discrimination of the various species 

 of the genus Tamarix. Attention was first directed 

 to it in 1827 by Ehrenberg, who subdivided the genus 

 into three sub-genera, Oligade'nia, Decade'nia, and 

 Polyade'nia, according to the presence of eight, ten, 

 or more lobes in this minute cushion. British and 

 French botanists have perhaps hardly given due 

 weight to a most careful paper on the subject by the 

 eminent Philip Barker- Webb, published in 1841. In 

 this essay it was first pointed out that there are two 

 distinct kinds of Tamarisk on the shores of France. 

 In one of them, which occurs on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, the five stamens spring from between 



