206 _Rhodora [OcroBER 
development it appears sufficiently distinct from S. ewropaea, but the 
distinctions seem to be merely habital, and no characters of flower or 
fruit have been found by which it can be separated from the upright 
plant. 
A fourth plant, known from the Valley of the Red River of the 
North in Minnesota and Manitoba to central Kansas and the Rocky 
Mountains, should be watched for in alkaline regions farther east. 
This is the recently described Salicornia rubra Nelson, which resembles 
typical S. europaea, but is easily separated by the shorter joints of the 
spikes. 
The distinctions and nomenclature of these four annual plants with 
blunt or bluntish inconspicuous scales may be summarized as follows. 
* Joints much longer than thick, conspicuously exceeding the middle flower. 
S. EUROPAEA L. Erect (1-4.5 dm. high), from simple to freely 
branched, the branches ascending, green, turning red in autumn; 
scales obscure and very blunt, making a truncate barely emarginate 
termination of the long joints of the slender (1.5-2.5 mm. thick) taper- 
ing spikes; middle flower much higher than the lateral ones, shorter 
than the joint; fruit pubescent; seed 1.3-2 mm. long.— Sp. 3 (1753); 
Huds. Fl. Angl. 1 (1762); Britten & Rendle, Journ. Bot. XLV. 104 
(1907). S. europaea (herbacea) L. Sp. 3 (1753). S. herbacea L. Sp. 
ed. 2, 5 (1763); and most later authors.— Salt marshes of the coast, 
New Brunswick to Georgia; interior salt springs, etc., New Brunswick 
and New York; also on the Pacific coast.  (Eurasia.) 
Var. pachystachya (Koch) n. comb. Spikes much thicker (3-4.5 
mm. thick).— S. herbacea, B pachystachya Koch, Syn. ed. 2, 693 (1844). 
— Similar range, less common. 
Var. prostrata (Pallas) n. comb. Branches horizontally spreading 
or drooping, very soft and lax, the lowest much elongated and decumbent; 
or the whole plant depressed and matted.— S. prostrata Pallas, Ill. 
Pl. 8, t. 3 (1803). S. herbacea, B prostrata Moq., Chenop. Enum. 
115 (1840).— Brackish or alkaline shores, Lower St. Lawrence River 
to Washington County, Maine. 
* * Joints about as thick as long, scarcely exceeding the middle flower. 
S. RUBRA Nelson.  Bushy-branched (0.5-2 dm. high), the abundant 
simple or forking branches ascending, turning red in autumn; scales 
broadly triangular, blunt or subacute; spikes slender-cylindric (2-3.5 
mm. thick), blunt, rather closely jointed; flowers crowded, the middle 
