TAMAEISCINEiE. 



On the edges of rills, and springy 

 wet places, where the water is not stag- 

 nant, throughout Europe, in north Rus- 

 sian Asia, in North America, and down 

 the Andes to the southern extremity. 

 In Australia and New Zealand, but not 

 in central Asia. Extends over the whole 

 of Britain. Fl. spring and summer. 



137 



Fig. 172. 



XIV. THE TAMAEISC FAMILY. TAMARISCINE^]. 



A very small European, North African, and central Asiatic 

 family, with one Mexican genus, all differing from the Pink family 

 in their frequently shrubby habit, alternate leaves, and the ovules 

 and seeds inserted on 3 distinct placentas, arising from the base 

 of the cavity of the ovary, and adhering sometimes to the sides, 

 forming incomplete dissepiments, almost as in the Frankenia fa- 

 mily, A single species only has any claims for admission into a 

 British Flora, and that only as an introduced plant, and no others 

 are likely to be met with in our gardens. 



I. TAMARISC. TAMARIX. 



Maritime shrubs, with slender, twiggy branches, covered with small, 

 green, alternate, scale -likejleaves ; the flowers small, in terminal spikes 

 or racemes. Sepals 4 or 5. Petals as many. Stamens as many, or 

 twice as many, hypogynous. Ovary free, with 3, rarely 2 or 4 styles. 

 Capsule 1-celled, opening in as many valves as styles. Seeds several, 

 erect, crowned each with a tuft of cottony hairs. No albumen. 



1. Common Tamarisc. Tamarix gallica, Linn. (Fig. 173.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1318. T. anglica, Brit. Fl.) 



An elegant shrub of 3 to 5 or 6 feet ; the slender branches erect, or 

 slightly pendulous at the extremities ; the numerous scale-like, pointed 

 leaves scarcely above a line long ; flowers pink or white, very small, 

 crowded in spikes of from \ to 1J inches long, forming frequently 

 branching terminal panicles, the petals persisting till the fruit ripens. 



VOL. i. M 



