71. Tamaricaceae

 

While exploring the scruffy banks of the Salinas River one day I could not help noticing these shrubs everywhere with beautiful, floppy, pink and white flowers. Actually I had encountered them once before, in San Diego county, and knew them to be the famous tamarisk, Tamarix ramosissima, the notorious Eurasian invasive that chokes waterways throughout the American west. This is a classic case of a noxious weed being seductively beautiful.

Tamaricaceae is tiny family consisting of four genera, Tamarix being the best known. Also known as salt cedar, there are over fifty species of tamarisk growing throughout the world. This is a fiercely adaptable plant, reproducing both sexually and vegetatively, resisting fire, and sinking its thirsty roots as deep as they need to go to suck out copious amounts of water. The US National Park Service has had some success combating its spread in North America by releasing tamarisk beetles (Diorhabda carinulata), a natural predator from Asia.