Tamarisk

“ Stunted tamarisk grows in some parts but not in the immediate neighbourhood of the salt deposits. We have here instead a belt of myriads of small conical sand-hills, also spreading from west to east, quite low to the west and getting higher for several miles towards the east. In the south-west part of the desert, curiously enough, between the zone of conical hills and the salt deposits, and parallel to both, lies a row of semi-spherical sand and salt mounds of a whitish colour. ”

“ But cheerless as these woods are, the neighbouring desert is even more dreary. Nothing can exceed the monotony of the scenery. Whichever way you turn, an ill-favoured plain meets your eye, covered with what seem to be large mounds, but which are really hillocks of clay surmounted by tamarisk, between which the path winds, every surrounding object shut out from sight, and even the distant hills barely visible in blue outline through the dusty vapour which fills the atmosphere like fog. ”

“ She collected her few remaining favourites, and with cheerful cries plunged into the tamarisk jungle. Here, shut out from sight, save of the yielding bushes, her thoughts went far afield. What if the old nullah between the reed huts and the rising ground were to fill? What if the low levels between that rising ground and the high bank were to flood? And every one beyond in the yellow corn, except Mai Jewun and people who did not count,--babies, and old women, and the crippled girl in the far hut! ”

“ It is chiefly cultivated for its seed-pods, which are used medicinally, and for food.——Dreams connected with Tamarinds are of ill omen, portending trouble, loss, and disappointment.——The Tamarind is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
TAMARISK.—The Tamarix orientalis is also known as the Tamarisk of Osiris. The ancient Egyptians believed that at the commencement of the world Osiris was born from the midst of chaos, from whence also proceeded his wife Isis, the Queen of Light, and Typhon, the Spirit of Darkness. Osiris was the ruler of all the earth ”

“ In the broad sandy wadi beds the tamarisk (athl) is everywhere found; its wood is used for making domestic implements of all sorts. Among fruit trees the vine, apricot, peach, apple, quince, fig and banana are cultivated in the highlands, and in the lower country the date palm flourishes, particularly throughout the central zone of Arabia, in Hejaz, Nejd and El Hasa, where it is the prime article of food. A hundred kinds of date are said to grow at Medina, of which the birni is considered the most wholesome; the halwa and the jalebi are the most delicately flavoured and sell at very high rates ”

“ A pine-cone often appears on the monuments as an offering presented to Osiris, and a manuscript of the Louvre speaks of the cedar as sprung from him. The sycamore and the tamarisk are also his trees. In inscriptions he is spoken of as residing in them, and his mother Nut is frequently portrayed in a sycamore. In a sepulchre at How [Pg 73] (Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is depicted overshadowing the coffer of Osiris; and in the series of sculptures which illustrate the mystic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philæ a tamarisk is figured with two men pouring water on it. ”

“ The tree which approaches nearest to the ability to support itself in Egypt, without man’s aid, is the tamarisk. It is a tree that drinks very little, and takes a great deal of killing. You see it growing as a stunted shrub in the nitre-encrusted depressions of the desert in the neighbourhood of Ismailia, and elsewhere, where it can only very occasionally be refreshed by a stray [413] shower. Wherever it can get the little moisture, with which it is satisfied, it becomes a graceful tree.
The thorny small-leaved acacia gives but little shade. ”

“ Tam"a*risk (?) , n. [L. tamariscus, also tamarix, tamarice, Skr. tamla, tamlaka, a tree with a very dark bark; cf. tamas darkness: cf. F. tamarisc, tamarix, tamaris.] (Bot.) Any shrub or tree of the genus Tamarix, the species of which are European and Asiatic. They have minute scalelike leaves, and small flowers in spikes. An Arabian species (T. mannifera) is the source of one kind of manna.
Tamarisk salt tree, an East Indian tree (Tamarix orientalis) which produces an incrustation of salt.
Tam"bac (?) , n. (Metal.) See Tombac. [Obs.]
Tam"bour (?) , n. 1. (Mus.) A kind of small flat drum ”

“ In the same way an old tree-trunk, or a stake propped upright with stones, is found here and there in the Egyptian desert adorned with shreds and tatters of clothing; for every pilgrim as he passes adds a rag. Such a tree is a certain ancient tamarisk-tree, called “the Mother of Clouts,” between Dar-el-beida and Suez. In the Mohammedan districts of North Africa trees of this kind are known as Marabout-trees ”

“ No change in the vegetation has appeared, except in the occurrence of large tracts of Tamarisk, which tree reaches to nearly the same size as the Jhow. Very little cultivation is to be seen; the villages are tolerably numerous, especially near the hills forming the north boundary of the valley.
11th.—Entered the pass which is at first wide, with a gradual ascent, but which soon becomes narrowish, with a good though gradual and easy ascent: the mountains are of no height, and they are not generally precipitous: no limestone, but much clay slate occurs. ”

“ The tree which produces the gum-arabic grows in some spots; and the tamarisk is met with here and there; but the scarcity of water forbids much extent of vegetation, and the hungry camels are obliged to go in the evening for whole hours out of the road in order to find some withered shrubs upon which to feed. During ten days’ forced marches we passed only four springs or wells, of which one only, at about eight hours east of Suez, was of sweet water. The others were brackish and sulphureous. We passed at a short distance to the north of Suez, and arrived at Cairo by the pilgrim road. ”

“ Tamarisciata, Freyer, is also considered by some authorities to be a form of E. innotata.
Some moths reared from larvæ obtained, in 1905, from Tamarisk, in Cornwall, have been referred to tamarisciata. ”

“ This view, then, presents some elements of probability; not only Tammuz but most of his variants appear to possess a vegetable significance, while the Ishtar type is open to interpretation on the same lines. Thus Adonis is associated with the myrrh-tree, from whose trunk he was born, and Osiris with the tamarisk, used in the ritual connected with his cult, while Attis after his [Pg 138] death became a pine-tree. Tammuz himself was conceived of as dwelling in the midst of a great world-tree, whose roots extended down to the underworld, while its branches reached to the heavens. ”

“ The quantity of manna collected at present, even in seasons when the most copious rains fall, is very trifling, perhaps not amounting to more than five or six hundred pounds. It is entirely consumed
[p.601] among the Bedouins, who consider it the greatest dainty which their country affords. The harvest is usually in June, and lasts for about six weeks; sometimes it begins in May. There are only particular parts of the Wady Sheikh that produce the tamarisk; but it is also said to grow in Wady Naszeb, the fertile valley to the S.E. of the convent, on the road from thence to Sherm. ”

“ The tamarisks give the name, and the spot is called Torfaia up and down the coast, being remarkable as the only place where any vegetation lives. The population is nomad and composed of wandering Arab tribes, who in remote times came from the Yemen and still speak the dialect of the Koreish in all its purity. When the wind blows, the sand moves like a sea, so that the company found their walls, built for defence, were in about three months all sanded up, and an Arab on his camel could fire right down into the fort. ”

“ The left bank of the Oxus above Kilif is, as a rule, low and flat, with reed swamps bordering the stream and a strip of jungle between the reeds and the edge of the elevated sandy desert. The jungle is chiefly tamarisk and padah (willow) . Swamp deer, pheasants, and occasionally tigers are found in it. The right bank is generally higher, drier, more fertile and more populated than the left.
A wide belt of blown sand (or Chul) , sprinkled with saxaul jungle, separates the swamps on the south side of the river from the cultivated Cultivation. plains of Afghan Turkestan ”

“ Another feature of interest is the extensive grove of tamarisks which is found near the centre of the valley. We had not hitherto seen so large a grove, nor trees of this kind of such size, or so graceful in form. The drooping twigs were covered with flowers at the time of our visit; and from the numerous heaps of ashes lying about it was clear that the wood is used by the Arabs for charcoal. Young plants were, however, springing up in place of the old, and our camels enjoyed the opportunity of browsing on the green leafy sprays and twigs. ”

“ The march proving uninteresting, and the country an uniform brown and barren tract.
8th.—Proceeded to Koord Cabul valley, the distance of which from the place we left being eleven miles: first having rounded a spur extending from the south boundary of Cabul valley, we then entered a narrow ravine, chiefly occupied by a small stream, which we crossed several times. The mountains being chiefly of limestone, then becoming slaty, very precipitous, rugged, and barren; on emerging from this very tedious ravine, we entered on some sward with plenty of Tamarisk, and Salix vimenea. ”

“ In our desert there are everywhere the same tamarisks, the same reeds, and—round about the six thousand hectares covered by the waters of the Vaccarès—always [Pg 213] the same horizon lines, nowhere absolutely unbroken, but almost everywhere festooned with clumps of tamarisks; the mirage will always show you a pond gleaming in some spot of the plain where none is to be found; and the fisherman, walking along the shore, increases enormously in size as he recedes, because of the refraction. ”

“ Die Tamariske ist ein bekannter Baum, welcher an Sümpfen und stehenden Gewässern wächst, eine Frucht trägt, welche einer kätzchenartig zusammengesetzten Blüte ähnlich ist. Die kultivierte Art wächst auch in Ägypten und Syrien, in Allem der wilden gleich. Sie trägt eine Frucht ähnlich dem Gallapfel, ungleich adstringierend im Geschmack, welche sich statt des Gallapfels zu Mund- und Augenmitteln empfiehlt, im Trank auch gegen Blutspeien, ferner für Frauen, die am Magen und am Flusse leiden, wie auch bei Gelbsucht, und Schlangenbiss. ”

“ I thought of home—my mother—the widow—when I should be a captain—and other things equally remote and agreeable.
The tamarind, to my taste, is the most beautiful tree of the East—not even excepting the banyan—the foliage, which is of a delicate green, droops in rich and luxuriant masses, like clusters of ostrich plumes—overhanging a 324piece of water, or half-enveloping some old mosque, durgah, or caravanserai—with the traveller’s horse picketed in its shade, or the group of camels ruminating in repose beneath it—nothing can be more picturesque. ”

“ The other banyan has no rootlets nor supporting stems to its branches, and its long arms suffer badly when the cyclone sweeps in from the Bay of Bengal.
The tamarind is a familiar tree common to most compounds. In shape it is not unlike an elm. Its foliage, of the character of acacia, is extremely fine, each tiny leaflet being barely half an inch long and not more than an eighth of an inch broad, yet its green crown is so thick that the rays of the sun scarcely penetrate, and the weary traveller and tired cooly eagerly seek its shade during the fierce noontide heat. ”

“ TAMARIND.—The Tamarindus Indica is in Ceylon dedicated to Siva, as the god of destruction. The natives of India have a prejudice against sleeping under the Tamarind, and the acid damp from the tree is known to affect the cloth of tents that are pitched under them for any length of time. So strong is the prejudice of the natives against the Tamarind-tree, that it is difficult to prevent them from destroying it, as they believe it hurtful to vegetation. ”

“ At half-past nine o’clock the left bank, close at hand, presented a real forest of tamarinds, which also traverses the lower covered pasture-land, or follows, in an irregular form, the newer line of the shore, caused by the descent of the stream. An incredible number of birds appear on all sides; these airy attendants of the marshes devour terrestrial animals, which perish through the overflow of water, and would otherwise entirely poison the air, as in Egypt. The trees, standing singly, are, for the most part, quite white, from the excrement of the birds, and naturally die away. ”

“ I see they are tamarind-trees; their fruit contains a pulp which is very useful in medicine, and which will suit your mother, I think, as well as the juice of the orange or lemon. We shall find some of the latter at our plantation near Tent Honse; but, in the mean time, do you climb the tamarind-tree, and gather some of those pods which resemble those of beans, fill one side of the bag with them, the other we will reserve for the oranges and lemons. Not to lose any time, I will go on to Tent House to seek for the two chests, and you can follow me."
Fritz was up the tamarind-tree in a moment. ”

“ Till I went to Ashanti, between Christiansborg and Accra was the only bit of good road I had seen on the English coast of Guinea, and that was probably made by the Danes, for there is along part of it an avenue of fine old tamarind trees, which only this careful people would take the trouble to plant. They are slow-growing trees, I believe, and must be planted for shelter between other trees which may be cut down when the beautiful tamarinds grow old enough to take care of themselves. ”