Tamarix africana Poir.

A native of southwest Europe and N. Africa, closely allied to T. gallica and with a similar flower-structure. Although this species normally flowers on the previous year’s wood, it also has ‘aestival’ forms, i.e., bearing their flowers on the season’s wood, and these are not easy to distinguish from T. gallica. The most reliable differences would appear to be that in T. africana part at least of the petals are persistent and that they are subacute to acuminate at the apex. The petals are also somewhat longer, to 1⁄8 in. long, but this difference only holds good for the vernal forms of T. africana. A specimen collected near Weymouth in Dorset has been identified as T. africana by Baum, and a plant from the Hampshire coast appears also to belong to this species. See also T. chinensis.