红砂 hong sha

Tamarix soongarica Pallas, Nova Acta Acad. Sci. Imp. Petrop. Hist. Acad. 10: 374. 1797; Hololachna soongarica (Pallas) Ehrenberg.

Shrubs, small, 10-30(-70) cm tall, much branched. Old branches gray-brown; branchlets reddish, usually zigzag, longitudinally cracked. Leaves often 4-6 clustered on shortened branches, grayish blue, sometimes turning purple-red at anthesis, shortly terete, scale-like, slightly thicker in upper part, 1-5 × 0.5-1 mm, often slightly curved, fleshy, with dotlike salt-secreting glands, apex obtuse. Flowers solitary, axillary (actually at apices of extremely shortened branchlets), or clustered into few flowered racemes in upper part of young branches, sessile, ca. 4 mm in diam.; bracts 3, lanceolate, 0.5-0.7 mm, apex acute. Calyx campanulate, united in lower part, 1.5-2.5 mm; lobes triangular, margin scarious, with dotlike glands. Petals white, tinged reddish, oblong, ca. 4.5 × 2.5 mm, base cuneate, attenuate, apex obtuse, open, reflexed in upper part; inside with 2 appendages in lower half oblanceolate, laminar, apex laciniate, inserted on two lateral sides of midribs of petals. Stamens 6-8(-12), free; filaments dilated at base, subequaling petals. Ovary ellipsoid; styles 3; stigmas narrowly acute. Capsule narrowly ellipsoid or fusiform, or triqueter-conic, 4-6 × ca. 2 mm, 2-3 × exceeding calyx, 3-angled, 3(or 4)-septicidal, usually 3- or 4-seeded. Seeds oblong, 3-4 mm, black-brown hairy throughout, base attenuate, apex acuminate. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep.

Deserts, margins of lowlands. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang [Mongolia].

Reaumuria minfengensis D. F. Cui & M. J. Zhong (Acta Bot. Boreal.-Occid. Sin. 19: 552. 1999), described from Xinjiang, is very similar to R. soongarica judging from the protologue. However, because we have not seen the type, it must remain a dubious species in the present treatment.