AMARANTACE.E. 01 



tapering at the base, dilated at the truncate top, the teeth of which are minute, blunt, or 

 obsolete.— S. peruviana, Kth.— Bab. Turk Islands!, Hjalm.; [seashores from the United 

 States to Peru]. 



5. BATIS, L. 



Flowers dioecious, amentaceous, naked. $ : Stamens 4, alternating with as many mem- 

 branaceous scales, enclosed in a bifid, delicate involucre, and inserted upon the base of an 

 orbicular bract: <j> : Flowers semi-immersed in the fleshy axis, exinvolucrate, supported by 

 a single bract. Ovary 4-celled, crowned by a bilobed stigma : ovule in each cell single, 

 basilar, anatropous. Syncarpium baccate : endocarp coriaceous ; testa membranaceous ; 

 embryo arcuate, exalbuminous. — Shrubby halophytes ; leaves opposite, fleshy ; aments com- 

 pact, oblong -cylindrical, axillary and terminal. 



The combination of this genus with Chenopodece was proposed by Kunth at a time when 

 very little of its structure was known, but now, since Torrey has lately given a complete 

 analysis of it, the difficulty is apparently increased. The chief points »f anomaly in this 

 Order may however be lessened by the following considerations : — 



1. Torrey adopts in Bat is a complete flower, interpreting the involucre as a calyx, and 

 the scales as a tetrapetalous corolla : thus the stamens would alternate with the petals. But 

 this anomaly disapjiears if we compare the scales, which in our specimens are smaller than 

 in Torrey's figure and exceedingly delicate, with the staminodia in other Chenopodece ; and 

 the bifid iuvolucre with the analogous organ in the female flower of Atriplex. 



2. In the female amentum of Balis, the structure of which I know only from Torrey's 

 analysis, the flowers are united to the middle and with the basilar bracts of the system ; each 

 flower, supported by a bract analogous to that of the male one, is reduced to a single pistil, 

 which may be considered as a 4-celled ovary, terminated with a bilobed stigma. According 

 to this view, each ovary-cell would contain a single hasilar ovule, and this is a kind of pla- 

 centation, of which analogies in allied plants are completely wanting, while the structure of 

 such a cell might be compared with that of the entire ovary of Chenopodea. Now the pistil 

 in this family is a reduced one, the two styles showing its compound nature, and that of 

 Batis therefore may be considered as showing its full development. The strength of this 

 argument is increased by the similar habit of Salicorniea>, their flowers immersed in the axis 

 (though not adherent), the fleshy parts, the coriaceous endocarp, and the membranaceous 

 testa. 



3. The exalbuminous embryo of other Chenopodea is usually combined with cochleate 

 cotyledons, while in Batis the embryo is only slightly arcuate ; but the fleshy, large cotyle- 

 dons, with a short conical and inferior radicle, are adapted to the asymmetrical form of the 

 seed, thus indicating an eccentrical development ; and such a structure might be compared 

 with the reduction of the common annular embryo in Caryophyllea to a straight lateral oue 

 in Bianthns. 



7- B. maritima, L. Leaves oblong-linear or linear, flat above, convex beneath. — Jacq. 

 Amer. Fid. t. 246 : the fruit-bearing plant (copied in Desc. Fl. 7. t. 496) ; Torr. in Smith- 

 son. Contribvt. 6. t. 11. — A diffuse shrub, with the young branches upright, 3'-4' high ; 

 leaves about 1" long, exceeding the ameuts; aments paniculate. — Hab. Jamaica!, March, 

 common in the salt-marshes of the south side of the island ; Turk Islands !, Hjalm. ; Carib- 

 bean Islands ; [Florida, Venezuela]. 



XXIII. AMARANTACE^E. 



Flowers apetalons (2)-3-bracteolate. Stamens hypogynous, opposite to the calyx, which 

 is usually scarious. Ovary unilocular: placentation basilar. Embryo excentrical : perispcrm 

 central, mealy. — Leaves exstipulate, usually quite entire. 



Some species are used in Colonial medicine, being slightly emollient, resolvent drags : thus 

 in Jamaica Iresine celosioides (Juba's-bush) is used as a stomachic by the Negroes (Pd.). 



In the arrangement of this Order I recur chiefly to R. Brown's generic characters. The 

 characters taken from the staminodia (or, rather, lateral teeth of the filaments), if employed, 

 as Endlicher and Moquin-Tandon did, for the discrimination of the genera, destroy those 

 natural assemblages of species, which from their habit, and especially their inflorescence, are 

 sufficiently obvious. 



