Tamarix usneoides
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Image 1
Habit
01 Mar 2011
Image 2
Leaves
01 Mar 2011
| Family: | Tamaricaceae |
| Full name: | Tamarix usneoides E.Mey. ex Bunge |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Abiekwasgeelhout, Dawip, Dawep, Dabbieboom, Dabbie, Dabees, Dawee, Daweep, Soutboom |
| English common name(s): | (Wild) Tamarisk, Abikwa tree, Dabbie, Daweb |
| Synonym(s): | Tamarix angolensis Nied. Tamarix austro-africana Schinz Tamarix engleri Arendt |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Tamarix usneoides is a perennial shrub or small tree 0.6–6.09 m tall; crown upright, narrow, somewhat columnar or narrowly conical; plants usually found in dense stands. Stems short, scaly. Branches leafy, usually extending from ground level; branchlets almost drooping. Bark brown-grey, rough, glabrous when older, longitudinally fissured. Leaves 1.25 mm long, greyish green, with salt glands, scale-like, vaginate (base clasping the stem or branch), closely overlapping, with short to inconspicuous herbaceous point. The plants are rarely dioecious. Inflorescence loose to more or less densely composed of slender axillary sprays or racemes. Flowers very small, pale, cream-white; petals inequilateral, 2.25 mm long, elliptic-ovate; sepals entire, outer sepals smaller, ovate-acute, inner sepals bigger, trullate-ovate; bracts similar to leaves, vaginate, shorter than to slightly exceeding pedicels (flower stalks); pedicels half as long as sepals; corolla persistent. Flowering in summer, July to October, sometimes in January, February and May. Fruit is a capsule, ovoid, about 6 mm long, dehiscent. Each flower can produce thousands of tiny (1 mm diameter) seeds that are contained in a small capsule and are usually decorated with a tuft of hair at the apex. (from www.PlantZAfrica.com website) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie |
| Content last updated: | 24 Jan 2012 |
