Salt Cedar Areawide Pest Management in the Western USA

Salt cedar (Tamarix spp. (Tamaricaceae: Tamaricales)) is a group of exotic shrubs to small trees that have invaded many riparian areas and lake shores across western North America. Of the 54 species known worldwide (Baum, 1967, 1968), ten species of salt cedars have been introduced into the USA (Crins, 1989), primarily from their countries of origin across Europe and Central Asia. They are also native in Africa and the Indian subcontinent of Asia. No species from the entire family Tamaricaceae are native to North America, and only a restricted group of six species of more distantly related plants (Frankenia: Frankeniaceae) in the entire Order Tamaricales are known to exist in the USA. Introduction of salt cedars began in the early to mid-1800s (first noted in 1823), when these species were used extensively for wind and water erosion control along railroads and waterways. Such use continued well into the mid- to late 1900s through plantings supported by federal, state and local governments and private land owners/ managers. In many areas where they were planted salt cedars naturalized, became well established and spread throughout riparian areas of the west. It is now estimated that these exotic invasive shrubs infest more than 800,000 ha of highly valued riparian land from the central Great Plains to the Pacific coast, and from northern Mexico to the Canadian border