Tamarix boveana Bunge
T. bounopoea Batt. & Trab.
Eng.: Tamarisk. Spa.: Taray, taraje, atarfe. Fre.: Tamaris de Bové. Ara.: Tarfa, tarfaya, tamayet, akuar, afersigh, lfersigh.
Small tree, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 8(10) m in height, or more frequently an erect shrub, fairly sparse, irregular in shape. Trunk ± erect, with greyish-brown bark and highly fissured in older specimens. Branches with slightly fissured bark, darker. Branchlets brownish or reddish-brown, younger branchlets greenish. Leaves alternate (2-5 mm), squamiform, triangular-lanceolate to linear, with an acute tip, sessile, slightly applied, freer than in the other species of the genus, without stipules. Often the first buds of the year show particularly large leaves, up to 1 cm long. Leaf blade with clearly visible salt secreting glands, especially in more saline habitats. Racemes large (40-150 × 7-12 mm), longly pedunculate, sparse, usually born on the branchlets of previous years. Flowers tetramerous, with 4 petals 3-5.5(5.5) × 1.3-2 mm, from narrowly obovate to unguiculate, white or pink. Calyx with 4 sepals, (1,7)2-3(3,5) mm. Bracts (3)4-7(8) mm, oblong or oblong-linear, same length or longer than the calyx. Bracts and sepals all green. Stamens 4 and styles 3. Pentamerous flowers rarely seen, especially during the later stages of the flowering period or during secondary flowerings. Staminal disk paralophic, with the apex of the disk lobes slightly wider than the base of the stamens. Fruit an ovoid capsule, 6-8 mm long, dehiscent in 4(3) valves, which when open releases numerous seeds with a long and dense tuft of white unicellular hairs.
Flowering:
February to June.
Fruiting:
March to June.
Habitat:
In humid terrains, especially along rivers beds and banks, lakes, sabkhas and other wetlands. It can tolerate salinity well. In arid to subhumid bioclimate.
Distribution:
Eastern Spain and North Africa, where it grows in the drier Mediterranean regions and in the northern Sahara.
Observations:
A similar species also with tetramerous flowers is T. tetragyna Ehrenb., that can be distinguished especially by the smaller size of its petals (< 3 mm), sepals (< 2 mm) and bracts (< 4mm); it grows in W Asia and NE Africa, reaching towards the W to NW Libya, near Tunisia and Algeria.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widespread species. It is not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is listed as Vulnerable (VU) at global level (Beech, 2018).