350 Proceedings of the 



Family of the Chenopodia (Chenopode'es). At the same meeting, 

 M. Auguste de St. Hilaire read a report on a memoir by M. Alfred 

 Moquin on this family, one of the least known in the vegetable 

 world. This memoir, which is the first of a series, is devoted to the 

 examination of the genus Sueda and the other Chenopodia most 

 allied to that genus. The genus Sueda had been confounded with 

 the Chiropodium and the Salsola, until Forskal proposed to class 

 them in a separate group under the above name ; but it has never, 

 until now, been accurately described by any naturalist. The Sueda 

 with ligneous or herbaceous stems, and fat and succulent leaves 

 almost vermicular or cylindrical, grow on the borders of the sea or 

 of lakes ; they will always afford soda by incineration ; but as the 

 presence of this substance in the tissue is accidental, it will disappear 

 when the plant is cultivated at a distance from salt water or marshes 

 M. Moquin enters into very long and minute descriptions of the 

 various organs of the plant, and affords some remarkable explana- 

 tions of anomalies in different species, particularly the existence of 

 the perisperma in the A triplex, the Beta, and the Chenopodium, 

 and its non-existence in the Salsola, the Camphorosma, the Ana- 

 basis, &c. ' The species of liquor,' says M. Moquin, ' in the midst 

 of which the embryo of the Salsola at first floated, becomes entirely 

 absorbed by it. When this embryo has attained its full growth, it 

 is larger or longer than that of the Chenopodia, which have seeds 

 abundantly albuminous ; it is more advanced, and has the tissue and 

 colour of a little plant. Consequently a seed of Chenopodia, which 

 has no perisperma, only differs from an albuminous seed of the 

 same family, inasmuch as it has already absorbed its perispermic 

 nourishment, and its embryo is rather more advanced in its growth. 

 It results also from this observation, that the moment of maturity 

 of seeds is not in all plants precisely that at which the embryos 

 have attained the same degree of development. Thus a grain or 

 seed of Sueda, having a spiral embryo, but without perisperma, is 

 not analogous, as to its growth, to a grain of Amerind which has just 

 left the parent stock ; the latter at its maturity resembles a seed of 

 Sueda, which is still at a certain distance from maturity.' In the 

 Chenopodees which have a perisperma the embryo is white ; in those 

 which have none it is greenish. The Sueda, however, are excep- 

 tions to this general rule, as their embryo is white, and they have no 

 trace of perisperma. The reason of this, according to M. Moquin, 

 is, that the Chenopodia which have a perisperma, generally have a 

 double integument, the thick and crusty exterior of which allows no 

 passage to the light, and the embryo therefore remains white; whereas 

 the others have only a simple, membranous, thin tunic, the tissue of 

 which allows the passage of the rays of light, which produce the 

 green colour. The Sueda, although without perisperma, have an 

 exterior crusty integument like the Anserince, and the embryo there- 

 fore does not become coloured. 



The genus Shangmia (which, as well as the genus Schoberia, was 



