French tamarisk
Tamarix gallica
Family · Tamaricaceae · Harmless
The tree with the finest, almost feathery foliage, growing where the water is salty and no other tree stands it: salt marshes, estuaries, brackish rivers and back-dune sands.
Streams and ditches · Dunes and sand · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known astamarisk, salt cedar
How to tell it
Slender flexible branches covered in minute scale leaves, giving the crown a grey-green feathery look. Pale pink or white flowers in fine dense spikes, gathered in a panicle. Dark brown to nearly black bark. Often with salt crystals on the foliage, which the plant excretes.
What it is confused with
African tamarisk
Tamarix africana
They are told apart by flower detail needing a lens: African tamarisk's petals are larger and persist after drying. For field purposes they are treated as the same thing, and neither carries risk.
What it is for
No food use. It is worth it as landscape reading: where there is tamarisk there is salt in the water or the soil, and that changes everything you can expect to find around. It is also one of the best trees for holding eroded riverbanks.