Anybody know this shrub? cultivated in San Sebastian Spain

This beautiful shrub cultured to tree-form lines some the streets and park walkways in the Basque-Country city of San Sebastian (Donostia), Spain.

Many of theses are very old, slow-growing, and have spit and been bolted back together for many years.

One of the most unusual and beautiful shrub-trees I have seen and is only seen in San Sebastian (Donostia).


I have not been able to identify it. It is not cypress or conifer. Any ideas?

bob
:>)

This message was edited Feb 8, 2006 12:18 PM

another group same park

different form of same species ooooops sorry wrong species uhhh



This message was edited Feb 8, 2006 12:19 PM

this is the right species different form

Looks like a Tamarix species, tho' a close-up of the foliage would help better.

Note that Tamarix is listed as a highly invasive alien in Calif., so not recommended for planting there.

My first thought was Tamarix as well.

Al

My wife and I are familiar with a Tamrix that grows in southern Ariz. that is a weed-like tree-shrub. a "salt cedar". I agree there is some resemblence.

While it does resemble the ariz. Tamrix, It is a much finer plumose green "leaf" (leaf is not the right word for this). I had no idea it would be so difficult to identify and I did not capture an image up close.

This is a highly-prized shrub in San Sebastian in the wet damp Northern coastal "green country" area of Spain (Very much like the climate of San Diego except it rains 2-3 times a week during Aug and Sept) And is very very slow. .. The bolts holding these split plants together are very old. We travelled the area extensively including the rural towns and coastal villages. We didn't see this anywhere but in the city maintained parks and walkways in San Sebastian.

Thank you, your comments give me a starting point.

bob
:>)




This message was edited Feb 8, 2006 2:48 PM

There's 50-60 species in the genus, so getting it identified may be very tricky. You can check Flora Europaea's search results for Tamarix at the link below for the more likely ones; in the 'Distribution' lists, look for the country codes Hs (Hispania, = Spain), Lu (Lusitania, = Portugal) and Ga (Gallia, = France) for the ones you might expect in the area (a species which grows well in wet northern Spain is also likely to occur in Portugal and France; ones listed for Hs only and not Lu or Ga are likely to be confined to drier regions of southern Spain)

http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/cgi-bin/nph-readbtree.pl/feout?FAMILY_XREF=&GENUS_XREF=Tamarix&SPECIES_XREF=&TAXON_NAME_XREF=&RANK=

(The other country codes here:
http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/FE/countries


This message was edited Feb 8, 2006 11:09 PM