Tamarix ramosissima
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Tamarix ramosissima' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Tamarix pentandra Pall., in part, nom. illegit.
- Tamarix pallasii Desv.
- Tamarix odessana Steven ex Bunge
Infraspecifics
T. ramosissima, better known in gardens as T. pentandra, is a species of wide distribution, from southern Russia and Asia Minor through much of southwest and central Asia to China, usually on saline soils. From other cultivated species, except the closely related T. chinensis, it is distinguished by the following combination of characters: Flowers in racemes usually 2 in. or more long, arranged in panicles and usually borne in late summer on the new growths; sepals, petals and stamens five; disk five-lobed, but the lobes usually indented and thus apparently ten-lobed; stamens with slender filaments, inserted in the sinuses between the lobes (in T. africana and T. gallica each stamen is inserted on a lobe and separated from its neighbours by a sinus). T. ramosissima was at one time fairly common in gardens under the name T. odessana, but in this country at least its main representative is the cultivar ‘Plumosa’, better known as T. pentandra.
'Pink Cascade'
A shrub of great vigour, bearing flowers of a slightly richer pink than in ‘Rosea’. Raised and put into commerce by Messrs Jackman.
'Rosea'
Synonyms / alternative names
'Aestivalis'
A shrub or small tree, ultimately from 12 to 15 ft high, or upwards, with long, slender, plumose branches. Leaves very small, pointed, the largest {1/8} in. long, arranged at intervals along the flowering shoots; the smallest one-fifth as large, and crowded fifty or more to the inch. Flowers arranged densely in slender, sometimes branching racemes, 1 to 5 in. long, each tiny blossom {1/8} in. across, rosy pink; they cover the whole terminal part of the current year’s shoot, which is thus transformed during August into a huge plume-like panicle of blossom as much as 3 ft long. Bracts longer than the pedicels. Sepals microscopically toothed. Petals elliptic. Bot. Mag., t. 8138.This beautiful tamarisk is quite hardy, and one of the most pleasing of late-flowering shrubs. It should be planted in groups large enough for its soft rosy plumes to produce an effect in the distance. To obtain it at its best, it is necessary to cut it back every winter almost to the old wood. It then sends up the long slender branches which flower for six weeks or so in August and September. It is propagated with the greatest ease by making cuttings, 6 to 9 in. long, in early winter of the stoutest part of the season’s growth, and putting them in the ground out-of-doors like willows.This tamarisk was raised towards the end of the last century by Messrs Chenault of Orleans. It occurred in a seed-bed of T. hispida, and was originally sent out by them as “T. hispida aestivalis”. Dr Stapf of Kew identified it as the present species, but used for it first the confused name T. pallasii Desvaux, and later, in the Botanical Magazine, the equally confused name T. pentandra. He gave the Chenault plant the distinguishing epithet rosea, which is preferable to aestivalis as a cultivar-name, and was accepted by the raisers at the time.
'Rubra'
A sport of ‘Rosea’, with darker pink flowers.