Shrub or small tree to 10 m tall Leaves: scale-like, pale green, small, egg-shaped to lance-shaped with a pointed tip, thin and dry along the margins. Flowers: pink, borne in dense cylindrical spikes 3 - 5 cm long, subtended by a triangular-egg-shaped bract with a long pointed tip. Fruit: a dehiscent capsule containing many minute seeds, each seed having a tuft of hair at the tip. Twigs: slender, brown, flexible, with small deciduous branches that fall with the leaves.

Similar species: The characteristics of Tamarix gallica make it unlike any other species in the Chicago Region.

Flowering: June to August

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Eurasia, this species rarely escapes from cultivation.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Tamarix is the classical Latin name for tamarisk. Gallica means "from France."

Author: The Morton Arboretum