Xi He Liu

Tamarix chinensis Lour. (Tamaricaceae), Chinese tamarisk or salt cedar, is a deciduous shrub or small tree 3-7 m tall with slender, drooping, reddish-brown branchlets that give a feathery appearance. The leaves are minute, scale-like, lanceolate, sessile, and overlapping along the twigs, 1-3 mm long, glaucous green. Flowers are produced in slender racemes 3-6 cm long, often gathered into large terminal panicles, each flower small (about 2 mm) with five pale pink petals, five sepals, and five stamens. The fruit is a small three-valved capsule containing minute hairy-tufted seeds. Native to eastern and central China, the plant tolerates saline and alkaline soils and is often planted along riverbanks and coasts. The young twigs and leaves, collected in spring or summer, are used in TCM to vent rashes (particularly incompletely expressed measles), dispel wind, and relieve dampness.