142 Rhodora [AucvsT 
maritima. This unfortunately is not easily accomplished. The 
specimens distributed as this species from European herbaria are 
very different from one another, and, like the American plant, they 
are probably a confusion of several distinct things. The descriptions 
too are confusing. When one refers, however, to the original descrip- 
tion of the Linnaean Chenopodium maritimum, upon which Suaeda 
maritima was founded he finds an indication that the name belongs 
to the plant which of late has been so called in America. At least, 
judging from an excellent photograph secured by Dr. B. L. Robinson 
of the specimen preserved at the British Museum, the plant first cited 
by Linnaeus (the Hortus Cliffortianus specimen) is our bushy-branched 
plant with large calyces and the achenes 2 mm. broad. The maturer 
specimens in the Linnaean Herbarium, as photographed by Dr. 
Robinson, seem also to be like the plant of Hortus Cliffortianus. 
This species is fortunately the plant represented in the plates cited by 
Moquin in his description of Chenopodina maritima a vulgaris in 
DeCandolle's Prodromus. These plates are two ' and they represent 
a plant well known in our herbaria both from Europe and America. 
In habit, color, calyx and seed it is closely matched by the third form 
mentioned from Wells Beach, and found very generally on the Atlantic 
coast of America. 
Our conception of Suaeda linearis (Ell.) Moq. has also been very 
confused. From his description Elliott’s Salsola linearis is apparently 
a tall erect freely branching plant (no. 4) which is common on the 
Atlantic coast from southern Maine to Texas. Elliott cited, however, 
as synonyms two plants — Salsola salsa? Michaux and C henopodium 
maritimum. Walter — neither of which seems clearly identified with 
the “nearly erect....much branched" plant which he described. 
The erect bushy plant with the flowers “spiked” and with the sepals 
"angled on the back," as described by Elliott, has small seeds, rarely 
1.5 mm. broad. The portion of Walter's specimen of Chenopodium 
maritimum preserved in the Gray Herbarium shows a plant apparently 
not distinguishable from the common Suaeda maritima of Europe 
and our northeastern coast. The fragment has the large flowers 
subtended by leaves which are much longer than in the commoner 
tall southern plant with its “spiked” flowers, the larger sepals are not 
distinctly carinate, and the large seed (2 mm. broad) is not different 
1 Oeder, Fl. Dan. iii, t. 489 (1770); Sm. Engl. Bot. t. 633 (1799). 
