Myricaria bracteata - Kashmir False Tamarisk

Kashmir False Tamarisk is a shrub, 0.5-3 m tall, much branched. Old branches are gray-brown or purple-brown. Leaves are dense on green branchlets of current year, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, or narrowly oblong, 2-4 × 0.5-2 mm, base slightly enlarged or not, margin often narrowly membranous, apex obtuse or acute. Flowers are borne in racemes on ends of branches of current year, clustered into spike. Bracts are usually broadly ovate or elliptic, sometimes rhombic, 7-8 x 4-5 mm, base narrow, margin membranous, spreading or recurved, apex acuminate. Flower-stalks are about 1 mm. Sepals are lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly elliptic, about 4 x 1-2 mm, margin broadly membranous, apex obtuse or acute, often incurved. Petals are pink, reddish, or purplish, obovate or obovate-oblong, 5-6 x 2-2.5 mm, base narrow, apex obtuse, often incurved, persistent in fruit. Stamens slightly shorter than petals; filaments ca. 1/2 or 2/3 united. Ovary conic, 4-6 mm; stigmas capitate. Capsule narrowly conic, 8-10 mm. Seeds narrowly oblong or narrowly obovate, 1-1.5 mm, apex awned; awns more than 1/2 white villous. Kashmir False Tamarisk is found in the Himalayas, from Pakistan to Kashmir, at elevations of 1500-2100 m. It commonly grows gregariously in Kashmir. Flowering: June-July.