Saltcedar
Tamarix ramosissima
Summary 4
Tamarix ramosissima, commonly known as saltcedar or salt cedar, is a deciduous arching shrub with reddish stems, feathery, pale green foliage, and characteristic small pink flowers.
Description 5
PLANTS: Deciduous large shrubs from 1-5 meters tall. Numerous slender stems arise from a branched caudex. Bark is thin, reddish-brown, but with age becomes furrowed and ridged. Source: Lesica et al. 2012; Jacobs and Sing 2012.
LEAVES: Leaves are arranged alternately. Leaves resemble cedar because they are small, 1-2mm, scale-like, and clasping the branches; however, unlike cedar leaves are deciduous. Leaves are succulent and broadly lanceolate. On the underside of leaves are salt-secreting glands. Source: Lesica et al. 2012; Jacobs and Sing 2012.
INFLORESCENCE: Small pink (occasionally white) flowers are arranged in narrow, drooping clusters (spike-like, bracteate racemes) of 15–40 mm long. Flowers are perfect, regular, hypogenous. The 5 sepals are separate, and 1 mm or less long. The 5 pink petals are separate, ovate, about 2 mm long. Flower have 5 stamens and 3-4 stigmas. Source: Lesica et al. 2012; Jacobs and Sing 2012.
Tamarisk is from the Arabic tamr which refers to a tree with dark bark (Gaskin in FNA 2015). Tamarix is derived from the Tambre River which in ancient times was referred to as Tamaris River in Spain (Jacobs and Sing 2012).
2022 Montana Field Guide: https://fieldguide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=PDTAM01080
Black Hills Priority: Class B
Sources and Credits
- (c) bradleytsalyuk, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
- (c) Matt Lavin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/8905968775/
- (c) Kjeannette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/38395710@N07/4072850538/
- Adapted by Custer State Park - SDGFP from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarix_ramosissima
- (c) Custer State Park - SDGFP, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
More Info
- iNat taxon page
- African Plants - a photo guide
- Atlas of Living Australia
- Biodiversity Heritage Library
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- Calflora
- CalPhotos
- eFloras.org
- Flora Digital de Portugal
- Flora of North America (beta)
- Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
- Go Botany
- HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants
- IPNI (with links to POWO, WFO, and BHL)
- Jepson eFlora
- NatureServe Explorer 2.0
- NBN Atlas
- New Zealand Plant Conservation Network
- OregonFlora.org
- SEINet Symbiota portals
- Tropicos
- USDA PLANTS database
- VASCAN by Canadensys
- World Flora Online
