Tamarix amplexicaulis Ehrenb.
T. pauciovulata J. Gay ex Batt & Trab., T. balansae J. Gay ex Batt. & Trab., T. trabutii Maire, T. balansae var. longipes Maire, T. balansae var. microstyla Maire.
Eng.: Tamarisk. Spa.: Taray, taraje, atarfe. Fre.: Tamaris pauciovulé. Ara.: Azaua, hazaua, tarfa, tarfaya, laâdab, obadah, (Egypt): aamaab. Tam./Tamahaq: Takerbita, tabarkat, tabarkal, tazootit, tazaut.
Small tree or shrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 8(10) m in height, wide crown but sparse. Trunk erect 20-40 cm in diameter, rarely wider. Bark greyish-brown, slightly fissured longitudinally. Branches extended-upright, with ± smooth bark, brown-grey to reddish. Branchlets very slender and flexible, reddish-brown to red, younger branchlets green. Leaves alternate, sessile, without stipules, very short (1-5 mm), wide —frequently wider than long—, squamiform, triangular, with a fairly blunt tip, slightly appressed to the branchlet, embracing it almost completely. The top half of the leaf is sometimes free and slightly recurved backwards. Leaf blade with numerous and clearly visible salt secreting glands. Sometimes, particularly along beds and sabkha margins, this secreted salt is so abundant that it completely covers the leaves, with the plant appearing completely white in all its parts, except for the trunk and the main branches. Racemes (30-70 × 8-9 mm) grow on young branchlets, with sparse flowers. Flowers relatively large (6-10 mm in diameter), subsessile, with 5 petals (1.5-2 mm long) broadly ovate-elliptic or broadly ovate, pink. Stamens variable in number, even among flowers of the same raceme, but always oscillating between 6 and 12. Nectar disk paralophic and intriguing due to the large number of lobes and stamens. Sepals and bracts ± ovoid. Fruit a capsule, ovoid-pyramidal [4-6(10) mm long] red, which when open releases numerous minute seeds with tufts of unicellular whitish hairs.
Flowering:
January to May.
Fruiting:
March to July.
Habitat:
Desert terrain with some edaphic moisture. Beds and banks of rivers and sabkhas with very little water and high salinity.
Distribution:
In the Saharan-Arabian region. In North Africa mainly in central and northern Sahara, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
Observations:
In all classical botanical works about the region, this species has been named as T. pauciovulata and T. balansae, more rarely also as T. trabutii; it is also named in this way in numerous herbaria. However, given that they are the same species, according to the current international rules of botanical nomenclature, the name that should prevail is that of T. amplexicaulis, which Christian G. Ehrenberg gave in 1827. Another North African species with flowers containing large numbers of stamens (up to 13) is T. passerinoides Delile ex Desv. [incl. T. macrocarpa (Ehrenb.) Bunge] (Ara. Egypt: Aamaab), which clearly differs from T. amplexicaulis by its generally longer and narrower leaves (sometimes its plasticity would encompass the shape of the leaves of T. amplexicaulis), flowers with pedicels 1-1.5 mm, larger petals (3-6 mm long) and a longer fruit capsule (6-12 mm); it grows in western Asia and North Africa, being relatively common in Egypt and Libya, reaching to the W up to the central Sahara (Algeria). There are other populations in the coastal and subcoastal areas of the southern Atlantic Sahara almost up to Senegal. Having been frequently confused with T. amplexicaulis, its North African distribution is not well defined.
Conservation status:
These species are relatively common and widespread. They are not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level (Crowley, 2021). In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).