Tamarisk Plant Exotic and Invasive Species on the Colorado Plateau

Tamarisk Plant Exotic and Invasive Species on the Colorado Plateau

Introduction

Each year, around 30,000 species all over the planet go extinct. Human activities for instance habitat devastation and overexploitation are openly guilty for a number of these extinctions, however in some cases the connection is not as straighter. Out of the 972 animals and plants species listed by the United States Endangered Species Act in the year 1996, nearly 400 were in danger of extinction primarily as a result of invasions by some introduced species (Everitt, 1998). Members of the species Tamarisk, usually known as tamarisk or Saltcedar, consist of the 2nd most terrible plant invasion in the United States. Tamarisk is an evergreen or a deciduous small tree or shrub with white or pink flowers and reddish-brown bark. Its seeds are wind dispersed and it is insect and wind pollinated. Tamarisk grows mostly on riverbanks in dry and waterless areas, and is extremely resistant to salinity and drought. Under favorable conditions, a single Tamarisk plant can grow up to twelve feet and can produce two hundred and fifty million seeds in just a single year.

Discussion

The species of Tamarisk are native to a large area extending from northern Africa and southern Europe across the Asia and Middle East to Japan. In the 1800s, a number of species were introduced to the United States as ornamentals and for the control of erosion (Brock, 1994). The species' wide dispersal, hardiness, and high seed production helped it stretch very quickly. At present, it occupies more than one million acres of habitation across thirty-four states, and is the leading streamside species all through the U.S. Southwest.

Botanical Characteristics of Tamarisk Plants

Tamarisk is a shrub or shrub-like tree with a number of outsized basal branches, stretching 13 to 26 ...