Family TAMARICACEAE
Description: Small shrubs or trees, mostly evergreen, commonly of saline or dry areas.
Leaves alternate, small, mostly sessile and scale- like.
Inflorescence slender, bracteate, a raceme or spike or flowers solitary. Flowers actinomorphic, small, mostly bisexual [or rarely unisexual and then plants dioecious]. Sepals and petals usually 4 or 5, free. Stamens as many as sepals, [twice as many as sepals or numerous], free [or basally fused]; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, mostly of 3 or 4 carpels; styles free or fused; ovules 2–many.
Fruit a small loculicidal capsule.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 4 or 5 genera, 100 species, Europe, Asia & Africa, especially from the E Mediterranean to Asia. Australia: 2 species
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Tamaricaceae, Order: Caryophyllales)
Wikipedia
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| One genus in NSW: Tamarix |
|
