﻿48 SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



" In March, 1917, Prof. J. J. Thornber, a collaborator of the Office of Crop 

 Physiology and Breeding Investigations, sent to Mr. Bruce Drummond, superin- 

 tendent of the date gardens at Indio and Mecca, Calif., a few unrooted cuttings 

 about 1 foot long and one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter, of Tamarix articu- 

 lata, received in March, 1909, by Prof. Thornber from Dr. L. Trabut, Govern- 

 ment botanist of Algiers. These cuttings made phenomenal growth and by the 

 fall of 1918 were attracting attention all over the Coachella Valley, the original 

 cuttings then being, some of them, more than 20 feet high. This species, called 

 athel by the Arabs, is an excellent windbreak provided the lower branches are 

 not cut off. It grows so rapidly that it makes effective windbreaks inside of 

 two years. After a growth of five years the original trees are several of them 

 well over 50 feet high, having a maximum diameter at the ground of 14 to 17 

 inches. Without question this is one of the most important windbreaks ever 

 found for use in the great irrigated valleys of the Southwest.. 



" This species, unlike many other species of Tamarix, is gray-green in color, 

 evergreen, and pyramidal in shape, making a very handsome ornamental tree, 

 especially when young. 



" The athel not only grows very rapidly, but has hard wood which when dry 

 makes excellent fuel. Prof. S. C. Mason reports that in Egypt this wood is 

 prized by the Arabs for construction purposes, as it is not attacked by borers 

 such as so greatly damage acacia and other hardwoods in Egypt. Dr. Trabut 

 informed me in 1899 that it was the largest and most important tree of the 

 Sahara Desert, frequently attaining a circumference of 6 feet and rarely as much 

 as 17 feet. 



" To Mr. Bruce Drummond belongs the credit for having discovered the great 

 value of this species for windbreaks and for ornamental plantings in the hot, 

 irrigated valleys of the Southwest. The original plantings of this species at 

 Tucson, Ariz., made much slower growth and had not made obvious the extraor- 

 dinary value of this species as a windbreak in the date-growing regions of the 

 Southwest. Because of Mr. Drummond's prompt recognition of the value of 

 this species and active dissemination of cuttings, it is estimated that 25,000 

 trees are now growing in the Coachella Valley alone, all propagated from less 

 than a dozen original cuttings sent to Mr. Drummond by Prof. Thornber in 1917. 



" In March, 1899, when I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of 

 Dr. L. Trabut, the eminent physician, botanist, and agriculturist of Algeria, he 

 called my attention to this important tree and gave me cuttings from the trees 

 growing in the botanical garden at the University of Algiers, together with in- 

 formation which was published in Inventory No. 7, under No. 3343. Unfortu- 

 nately, the steamship Strathleren on which I shipped this material on March 6, 

 1899, did not proceed directly from Algiers to New York, as the captain ex- 

 pected, but was ordered back to Smyrna and spent nearly three months in mak- 

 ing the trip from Algeria to New York. As a result, many of the plants, among 

 them Tamarix articulata, died on the way to this country. 



" The spectacular character of this extraordinary plant and its rapid utiliza- 

 tion in a practical way is a proof of the value of thorough botanical studies such 

 as Prof. Thornber has been making on Tamarix for some years past. Doubtless 

 most of the species are of little practical value, but among numerous untested 

 species which Prof. Thornber obtained was the athel, which promises to be 

 worth millions to the farmers of the southwestern United States." (Walter T. 

 Swingle.) 



For an illustration showing the use of the athel tree as a windbreak, see 

 Plate IV. 



